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THE 



.^<5 A 



MYSTERY OF IIIQUITY: 



A PASSAGE OF THE 



SECRET HISTORY OF AMERICAN POLITICS, 

ILLUSTRATED BY 



A VIEW OF METROPOLITAN SOCIETY. 

[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845, by T>. Trancis Bacon, in the Office 
of the Clerk of the District Court of the Southern District of New York.] 

r, 



The Mysteries of political history, occasioned by the imperfect presentation of 
the facts which are the essential causes of great public movements and events, are 
always numerous, not only in the annals of the past, but in the cotemporaneous 
records of the present. The journals of the day furnish little more than the actual 
results ; of the secret causes and agencies they give little information. Li Euro- 
pean history, this more valuable instruction is generally given in the " secret me- 
moirs" of the various courts, and in the private correspondence of statesmen, princes, 
courtiers and intriguers. In the American Republic, this field is to be occupied by 
facts from sources less accessible. It is a department which may yet be filled. For 
the present, a single chapter may suffice, on one branch of the subject. 



The machinery of election frauds 
in the city of New York, is a matter so 
important to the fate and history of the 
republican system, and yet so remote from 
the knowledge of even the most intelli- 
gent politicians, as to be worthy of special 
and elaborate notice in an " American 
Review," on whose pages may be sought, 
in other times, portions of the history of 
the age, as evidences of the success or 
failure of this first experiment in practical 
democracy — actual popular self-govern- 
ment. That such frauds exist, has long 
been notorious. No New York politician 
would risk a reputation for veracity and 
intelligence so far as to deny it. But of 
the details, the system, the extent of these 
operations, much remains to be commu- 
nicated, even to those best informed and 
most active in the political movements of 
the last few years. The subject, how- 
ever, is one not easily investigated. The 
success of these frauds was of course 
insured only by profound secresy, and by 
subordination and obedience among the 
inferior agents, excluding each from a 
knowledge of any more than his own 



guilty part. Those who alone know all, 
or enough to show the extent and cha- 
racter of the operation, are so prominent 
in position and in the profits of the ini- 
quity, as to be above the reach of ordinary 
inducements to betray the facts of which 
they themselves were the chief authors. 

The investigation is, therefore, beset 
with difficulties, tending to produce des- 
pair of success on the part of any who, 
believing the general fact, seek the i^arti- 
culars'and the proofs. It requires sin- 
gular gifts,^ — courage, energy, and perti- 
nacity, of a peculiar order, sustained by 
enthusiastic devotion to the cause of truth 
and justice, and by the hope and pros- 
pect of results mighty beyond prudent 
expectation. It demands also, exclu- 
sive appropriation of time, study, pa- 
tience, observation and reflection, and 
forces the encounter of many annoj^ances 
and dangers, incurred by the necessary 
association with abandoned and desperate 
men, in whose experience the truth is 
contained. JVIoney, too, as well as costly 
time and labor, is wanted, in amount be- 
yond ordinary means, for uses which are 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



.VA- 



essential to the main purjiose. Other re- 
quirements — all that can be imagined — 
incluileJ in the conditions of success, or 
even progress. 

Guarded, by these difficulties, against 
the perils of inquiry and detection, the 
auth(irs of these frauds have hardened in 
confidence, cool determination and impu- 
dence. After an election, the defeated par- 
tisans soon forget the inquiry into causes ; 
and it is impossible to arouse them to the 
painful labor of searching for tlie mode 
and means of tlieir own irretrievable 
loss. The fruitless contest once fully 
past, disappointment vents itself in vain 
curses ; and wrath soon evaporates in 
threats as idle as the wind. Tiie com- 
bination of force, kept up in hope of 
success, vanishes in defeat ; und the re 
cently associated agents of the defeated 
party meet again only as strangers, until 
a new movement inspires new hope, in 
another contest — while the victorious 
leaders of faction divide the spoils, with 
a security which can tolerate no feeling 
towards tiieir baffled foes but indifference 
or contempt. 

The great and manifold difficulties thus 
shown, as besetting such an investiga- 
tion, have, in this instance, been met by 
the possession of the means and qualifica- 
tions enumerated, to an extent which can 
be better demonstrated by the results at- 
tained, than by preliminary statements, 
which might seem prematurely boastful or 
egotistical. It is enough now to say, that 
tlie unremitting labor of many months 
has been given to this task, in total ex- 
clusion of all other interests and occupa- 
tions ; and the facts are therefore present- 
ed, from the outset, with a conl'uleiice in 
the full mastery of the whole .subject and 
its necessary proofs, which will be shared 
by all, as tlie development progresses. 

The time selected tor this revelation is 
peculiarly adapted to the accompli.shment 
of its best purposes, and to the acquire- 
ment of the public confidence in its truth, 
and its independence of personal or tem- 
porary advantages. The great contest on 
which so many pubhc and private interests 
depended, and whicii bore so many away 
from the control of moral principle by its 
powerful excitement.s — is now closed ; 
and its momentous, irreversible result 
has been registered. Not even a local 
object now remains to he jiromoted, either 
in the shape of a Charter Election, with 
its corporation patronage in view of the 
contestants, or a State Election, with its 
higher gifts and dignities, with its Guber- 



natorial and Congressional honors and its 
influence on the National mind The 
period between this and any future im- 
portant action by popular suffrage will be 
so long, that no " effect" or temporary ex- 
citement could be produced, and no suc- 
cessful perversion or permanent mis-re- 
presentation of facts hoped for. What- 
ever may be put forth seeming to any 
worthy of denial, confutation or condem- 
nation, — the date and circum.stances 
" leave ample room and verge enough" to 
enlighten and correct public opinion, and 
vindicate all claiming a hearing or redress, 
before the judgment of the people has been 
pronounced in its only effective form — 

THE BALLOT. 

Equally is di.scarded every pretense of 
impressing the public mind anywhere 
with the sense of implied injustice done 
to any individual candidate or party or 
cause, by a decision wrongfully obtained 
or erroneously recorded. For the vindi- 
cation eiftier of the man or tiie people, 
such a demonstration would be valueless. 
Both are already placed on higher grounds. 
The character and principles of those who 
by their votes maintained the right, are 
enough, and are well enough known by 
all Christendom, to vindicate them be- 
yond .Mispicion- and to maintain them in 
as much honor as ever accrued to wronged 
patriotism. 

This investigation, its purposes, its 
possible con.sequences, have no designed 
relation to the advantage or prospects of 
any person. It is no appeal, no writ of 
crroragainstthejudgment of that tribunal 
wliich, right or wrong, renders the last and 
highest of human decisions. The whole 
inquiry is siinpl)' a post mortem examina- 
tion, with the purpose of ascertaining the 
cause of death and the manner and instru- 
ment of the crime, for the instruction and 
security of all who shall come after, that 
those who distrustjithe people's sense, 
and despair of justice from the public judg- 
ment, may derive encouragement from 
these evidences of a fraud in the mere 
means of declaring and manifesting that 
judgment. 

As a contribution to the historj' of man, 
it will be valuable ; and its worst devel- 
opments will but elevate the character 
of the great whole, while they di.^play 
the abominations of a few. Men of this 
and other countries, enslaved or free, will 
be the wiser for this unfolding of truths. 
All that was desired by the patriotic, the 
wise, the good, as to the moral signifi- 
cance of the late great trial of principles 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



and men, will be obtained in tlie fruits of 
this inquiry ; and it will place in history 
a lesson of renewed hope and fortitude to 
republican faith. With these facts esta- 
blished, the friends of liberty may yet rely 
on the just judgment of a free people, as 
to the best exercise of their power. 

The CAtJSE, the manner and the in- 
strument of the result cannot be credibly 
made known, until the nature of these 
agencies is developed, by an exhibition of 
the character of a peculiar and hitherto 
undescribed portion of the population of 
" the great city." The resources of 
political crime are found in the social 
elements and combinations of the metro- 
politan community. The seat of actual 
power in tliis true democracy has long 
been the subject of a problem yet un- 
solved. With the source of new prin- 
ciples and dogmas, origination of pur- 
poses, this question has nothing to do. 
But to ascertain the means of their ac- 
complishment by the ballot, is an object 
at once momentous in interest and prac- 
ticable in effect. 

Within a circle of three miles' radius, 
on and around the Island of Manhattan, 
may now be found nearly half a million 
of people. Very few of these know any- 
thing of the characters, pursuits or rela- 
tions of their fellow-citizens. Society 
is here completely divided into classes, 
arranged generally according to occupa- 
tions, separated from each other by dis- 
tinctions of property, of employment, of 
association and habit. Business is the 
one great word which fully expresses the 
main object and leading idea of the com- 
munity. It characterizes the mass, and 
gives the city all its greatness, fame, 
wealth and power. Absorbed in the pur- 
suit ofgain, the vast majority of the people 
are ever sedulously practicing the familiar 
precept, that " every man should mind his 
own business, and let others mind theirs." 
The comparatively few who are devoted 
to pleasure and fashion exclusively, to 
mere expenditure without acquisition, 
constitute no distinct class here, and give 
character to no class in society. As far 
as wealth furnishes title to distinction, 
and justifies high claims to rank and in- 
fluence, it is from resources increasing by 
thrift, not stationary by free use, or dimi- 
nishing by extravagance. The richest 
here are still laboriously accumulating 
new riches by active " business." No 
withdrawal from the pursuits in which 
their property was obtained could add to 
their dignity or share of public respect, 



any more than it could to their happiness. 
The few idlers who " live upon their 
means" are but tolerated, not honored, 
among their more active associates, who 
rejoice in daily augmentation of affluence. 

From the jurist, the professor, the di- 
vine, the banker, and the lord of a square 
mile of buildings, or of a score of floating 
palaces, to the industrious day laborer, 
whose hand hews or places the materials 
of the structures of wealth and pride, all 
conditions of men are here alike in pur- 
pose, and regard none as ranking above 
them because exempt from the wish or 
need of gain. Such are the mass of so- 
ciety — such in simplicity and unity of 
purpose, in patient, hopeful induslr}', in 
devotion to business, and in harmony of 
feeling and action. They are a very 
large majority of the permanent residents 
of the city, and, by natural right, and true 
democratic republican principle, should 
rule it, and direct its power and influence 
in the government of the State and Union. 
But it happens that though they are 
many, they are not all. 

There is a class remote in aim and char- 
acter from these, alien from their sympa- 
thies, and indifferent or hostile to their 
prosperity, — disdaining their objects and 
pursuits, or despairing of success in them. 
Though the beneficent influences of pro- 
tective republican legislation thus far make 
them comparatively few, they are formi- 
dable by their relative smallness of num- 
ber, and their consequent monopoly of the 
mighty resources of lawless adventure, 
fraud, violence and crime. In every great 
city, gathers a throng of men, desperate 
from various causes, of which want is the 
predominant one. With some, it is want 
of the absolute necessaries of life ; with 
many, it is merely the want of the abun- 
dant means of the gratification of vicious 
impulses and extravagant fancies. Most 
of them have, at one time or another, 
made attempts to acquire a livelihood or 
a fortune by honest, regular means; but, 
failing of success, either by error or cala- 
mity, they have concluded that those who 
secure comfort or Avealth by lawful pur- 
suits, do it only by knavery, carefully 
disguised in external respectability. The 
unhappiuess induced by misfortune, takes 
the form of a peculiar misanthropy. 
They declare and believe that no man is 
truly honest, and that those who are re- 
puted virtuous and high-principled, only 
seem so. This contempt of others, and 
others' pursuits, relieves their pangs cf 
discontent, envy, or despair, by raising 



4 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



their solf-rcspcct, as they compare them- 
selves wiih the distorted images of so- 
ciety -whicii they have formed. Having 
decided that " there is no virme extant," 
they resolve that they are hetter than 
others in pretending to none — that they 
are peculiarly honorable, because they 
frankly and truly avow their dishonesty. 

The princijties thus formed, suggest 
and direct a life of adventure, reckless- 
ness, frequent dishonesty, vicious indul- 
gence, and unlawful an. They become 
gamblers, gambling-house keepers, writ- 
ers and publishers of obscene and licen- 
tious ijooks and papers, sham-brokers, 
" Tombs-lawyers," " straw-bail " men, 
" skinners," " touchers," professional per- 
jurers, police decoy-ducks, and " stool- 
pigeons," receivers of stolen goods, sharjv 
ers, impostors, prize-fighters, mock-auc- 
tioneers, watch-stuflers, pocket-book drop- 
pers, brothel owners and bullies, cock- 
fighters, dog-stealers, street beggars, and 
so on through innumerable grades and 
inventions of roguery, down to counter- 
feiters, pickpockets, incendiaries, high- 
way robbers, and burglars. The English 
language, originally too poor to express 
all these abominations, has been enriched 
by the addition of new terms, coined or 
compounded to represent the novelties of 
crime in the American metropolis. 

All these designated occupations, and 
more, not here specified, exist in New 
York, though unknown, even by name, 
to a large portion of the population. Va- 
rious as are these forms of villany, they 
all harmonize in principle and purpose. 
The actors in these crimes, strong in the 
consciousness of their numbers and com- 
mon sympathies, constitute a distinct 
community, with rules and resources 
which make them formidable in every re- 
lation to the commonwealth, but especial- 
ly in their power and influence in party 
j)olitics. To understand their agencies 
in these movements, it must be noted 
that there are ranks and classes among 
ihem, distinguished from each other by 
the ordinary varieties of puivuiis, asso- 
ciations, means, intelligence, manners, 
dress, and style of living. Though of 
one accord in principle, all seeking their 
own good by the injury of others, they 
vary in the means of accomplishing their 
radically evil purposes. The better por- 
tion of them ithe better because pretend- 
ing to less of worldly honor) seek their 
bare livelihood in avowed violation of 
the law of the land, which has its own 
means of efllcient vindication. The worst 



and most dangerous portion neither steal 
nor murder "within tlie statute." Their 
crimes, are moral, not technical. They 
take, without ^-endering an equivalent, 
their thousands, while the common thief 
but pilfers in units. The vulgar criminal 
walks in rags, while ihey shine in costly 
apparel and jewelry. The mere pick- 
pocket, in swift and just retribution, 
finds a felon's punishment and infa- 
my, and a felon's dishonored grave ; 
but they triumph in wholesale crime, 
and flaunt their splendid livery of guilt, 
among the noblest and proudest of the 
great republic. They even sit on the 
very throne of justice, and dis-pense its 
dread revenge on their meaner ajid more 
unfortunate associates, who are doomed 
to evince the terrors of an imperfect law 
by the sufl'erings of the prison, the ma- 
nacle or the gallows. The childien of 
misfortune, who alone are reached by 
vindictive human justice, are but the 
creatures — thetools — of thechildren of ex- 
travagance and pride, whose more dan- 
gerous vices constitute the patronage and 
countenance of vulgar crime. 

The whole class, thus characterized, 
numbers thousands of citizens of New 
York — all voteks. It has hardly oc- 
curred, as yet, to those curious in moral 
and political statistics, to enumerate this 
unregistered portion of society. Their 
numbers, their names, their occupations, 
have no place in the " business directory^ " 
of NcAV York, though their pohtical and 
social action is felt everywhere. At the 
head of this great league and community 
of wickedness, and especially directing 
the action of the whole in pohtics, is a 
body of men, commonly known by the 
term "sporting characters," constituting 
the aristocracy of roguery. This higher 
class of adventurers are often found par- 
tially disguised under the nominal profes- 
sion of iionorable callings, such as those 
of brokers, lawyers, occasionally mer- 
chants and shopkeepers ; and some of them 
are proprietors.where tlicy have managed 
their various unlawful gains with piu- 
dence. Eut all are gamblers, and derive 
tbeir real profits from the resources of 
that infamous pursuit. In dress, man- 
ners, equipage, and all the externals of 
life, they are ambitious and ostentatious, 
often seeking to intrude ihemstlves among 
the respectable classes of society. They 
keep fine horses, fiimous for speed and 
performances on the "Avenues" and the 
" Island," driving them in elegantly mo- 
deled light vehicles, and compete with 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



wealthy country gentlemen and sports- 
men in the breed of their dogs, in the 
finish of their guns, and the various ap- 
paratus of the sports of the field. Their 
tastes, amusements, occupations and cha- 
racters, differ little from those of the 
profligate, gambling, sporting aristocracy 
of Britain, the members of the fashion- 
able clubs of the West End of (he British 
metropolis, constituting a large portion 
of the nobility and gentry, who, placed 
by hereditary wealth and distinction 
above the necessity of useful occupation, 
devote their lives to a laborious competi- 
tion with coachmen, jockeys, dog-fan- 
ciers, blacklegs, prize-fighters, huntsmen 
and gamekeepers. Proud of this asso- 
ciation of character and identity of pur- 
suit, the American " sporting aristocracy " 
look down upon the honorable portion of 
their fellow-citizens engaged in the suc- 
cessful, though laborious occupations of 
the professions, trades, arts and com- 
merce, with very much the same feeling 
as do the profligate lordlings across the 
water on the substantial merchants 
and mechanics of the city of London, 
and with quite as much real cause for 
their assumed superiority in the scale of 
being. 

In the gambling houses of Park-Place, 
Vesey street, Broadway, Park Row, &c., 
on all the great race-courses, often at the 
fashionable wateriag-places and summer 
resorts, the concourse of political adventu- 
rers around the great seats of legisla- 
tion, these fellows are to be found exer- 
cising their gifts and gratifying their 
fancies for pleasure or display — entrap- 
ping their victims, the heirs of great 
estates, or weak men, suddenly raised by 
speculation or other accident, to the pos- 
session of wealth. But these occupations, 
parades and pastimes, are secondary to 
their main business, and merely serve to 
fill the intervals of a more important 
series of engagements. To these gambling 
gentry, the great game is Politics. In 
its splendid combination of chances and 
boundless facilities for cheating, impos- 
ture and trickery, they see a worthy field 
for the exercise of their peculiar arts ; and 
they enter it with a cool confidence in 
their own possession of the needful quali- 
fications for success in it, which places 
them beyond the competition of those 
less versed and experienced in corrupt 
human nature, less familiar with the 
agencies of fraud and crime, or less un- 
scrupulous about their employment for 
such purposes. 



The larger portion of thisclass of men, 
hardened and chilled by their manner of 
life — with native sympathies and gener- 
ous impulses destroyed, and with pas- 
sions schooled into conformity to the 
most effectual means of their own gratifi- 
cation — regard the ordinary contests of 
political parties with as little interest in 
the pending issues, as they would feel in 
the ultimate prosperity of any corpora- 
tion in whose stock they might speculate 
for a time, merely to transfer it to some 
incautious purchaser who might be in- 
duced to take it at more than its true 
value. Such, in the abstract, would al- 
ways be their view of partisan strifes, 
holding themselves supremely indifferent 
to any circumstance but the chance of 
securing large gains by heavy odds in 
their favor on the results. Betting on 
ELECTIONS is with them a study, or trade, 
or craft, the most important branch of 
their regular business : and the mode of 
securing gain to themselves is the same 
as in those manipulations of cards and 
dice which to the dupe only are games of 
chance, while to the practiced cheat ihey 
truly are games of skill. Thus they 
play in politics, where the ballot is the 
die, and the voter is the card. They 
play at this game also with " loaded 
dice " and " makked cards." And when- 
ever they enter into the business of elec- 
tions with money staked upon the result, 
they proceed with as much confidence in 
the production of the majorities on which 
their winnings depend, as they do in 
their gambling-houses, where all the sup- 
posed chances of the faro-table, the rou- 
lette, the roiige- et noir, the dice box, the 
cut, the shuffle and the deal, are convert- 
ed, by their knavish arts and secret 
marks and mechanical contrivances, into 
positive certainties of fradulent gain. 

The recent developments of Mr. Green, 
the reformed gambler, in his various pub- 
lic lectures and communications on this 
subject, have made these illustrations 
sufficiently intelligible, and furnish abun- 
dant evidence of the universal dishonesty 
of the whole gamester-craft and profes- 
sion. 

Yet these men are not so artificial and 
impartial as to be totally without opinions 
and preferences in politics. The political 
bias of the whole class is instinctive to- 
wards that party which seeks power by 
patronizing crime, encouraging and de- 
lending lawlessness, violence and fraud, 
and which abuses the possession of pow- 
er to reward, patronize and promote the 



6 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



evil agencies which secure its success, — 
the party which appeals constantly to 
the envy and prejudiceof the poor against 
the rich, — which wars against the inter- 
ests of "business men," and against that 
policy of credit and protection by which 
are secured the rewards of enterprise, 
honesty, thrift and industry'. Did every 
man in that community of crime act ac- 
cording to the principles and instincts of 
his caste, there would not be an excep- 
tion to the universal application of the 
rule by which their associations in party 
politics are determined. But there are 
among them some, who, though identi- 
fied with them in dis^regard of public opi- 
nion and the moral sense of respectable 
society, in irregular and adventurous 
lives and in depraved and sensual tastes, 
have yet some remains of an originally 
better nature about them, some dash of 
the heroic in their perverted spirit, some 
sentiment of true manly honor among 
those artificial notions of it which they 
share with desperadoes and outlaws. 
There are a few such, who, hoAvevcr de- 
graded in principle and darkened in mo- 
ral perception, refuse to follow the bent 
of their order in politics, and who, though 
indifferent on ordinary party quesiions, 
do occasionally act with those that seek 
to honor the honorable, and discard fraud 
and falsehood from their schemes and 
policy. 

Though there is not one in a hundred 
of " the sporting class" who can claim 
this exemption, yet it should be regarded 
in a statement designed as this is to be 
exact in every particular. There are not 
known to be ten — it is hardly possible 
that there are twenty — of the gambling 
fraternity who differ from their associates 
in their political sentiments ; and these 
are consequently excluded from famili- 
arity with the details of their political 
action. 

There are also many hangers-on, occa- 
sional associates, dupes or pupils of the 
tribe, sons of respectable or wealthy peo- 
ple, falsely ambitious and dashing young 
" business men," who irequent gaml)ling- 
houses and similar dens of roguery and 
vice, but have neither experience, sense 
nor desperation to make them anything 
more than " honorary " members of the 
order, or to admit them to the mysteries 
of the craft. There are many thriving 
merchants, brokers, professional men, 
shipmasters and others of various respect- 
able pursuits, including some from the 
country, occasionally here, mingling with 



these licentious banditti, — ambitious and 
even vain of association with ihcm, but 
alien from their sympathies, and elevated 
above them in opportunities of gain Aviih- 
out thepleaofneces5?7y for lawless adven- 
ture and infamous occupation. Totally in- 
dependent of all these volunteers, both in 
counsel and action, are the class before 
described. Occasional but rare personal 
sympathies of character and habit render 
permanent their connexion with these in- 
cidental associates : but, in general, these 
are but their subjects and victims. 

The characteristics of these different 
social classes embody the hidden elements 
of political principle and power — the se- 
cret of American political histor}'. In 
the class of the adventurous, the vicious, 
the desperate, the lawless, the criminal — 
is found a unity of feeling and purpose, 
which pervades the whole in their moral 
association, without reference to accidental 
and often temporary' and transient differ- 
ences in rank, situation, and means cf 
comfort, pleasure or display. Through 
all these widely-variant grades of villany, 
— from the aristocratic gambler and faro- 
banker in Park Place or Barclay street, 
down to the copper-tossing ragged va- 
grant of Corlaer's Hook, the occasional 
inmate of Blackwell's Island and the 
brothel-bully and " toucher " of the Five 
Points or West Broadway, there extends 
a wondrous social sympatliy, a conscious 
harmony of purpose and electric unity of 
action, not more fearful in aspect than 
woful in experiment to the honest, indus- 
trious, peaceful portion of society. Strong 
in this Masonic felloAvship and secret 
mutual aid in violation of the public laws 
and morals, they fear not to attempt any 
crime, however startling to the pcpular 
apprehension, and however audacious in 
its defiance of municipal agencies of jus- 
tice. The murder of the wretched Corlies 
on the most frequented comer of Broad- 
way at the most stirring hour of the eve- 
ning, only two years ago, was not effect- 
ed without the deliberate premeditation 
and cooperation of a large body of this 
very class of men, who did not hesitate 
afterwards publicly to avow their a]ipro- 
val of the crime and their resolution to 
screen the perpetrators at all hazards. 
Similar impunity has been enjoyed in 
other case>s even more shocking to the 
public mind. Who does not know of the 
horrible case of the murder of Mary Ko- 
crers ? Her fate was and is no mtstery 
to some. The author of that hideous, 
horrible, unnatural butchery cf a young 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



and beautiful female teas Icnown then to 
some officers of justice, and is known 
now. Hundreds of criminals of that and 
minor grades are sheltered by the same 
awful combination of criminal agencies, 
and are discharged from actual arrest and 
imprisonment, often without form of trial, 
by collusions of judicial as well as exe- 
cutive agents, in league with the secret 
community of blood and fraud. They 
stand to one purpose, and stand by each 
other in its accomplishment. 

With such traits, connexions, and pow- 
ers, this class become, in political move- 
ments, the lords of the land, the control- 
lers of government, the arbiters of the 
commonwealth's destiny. That they can 
be such is evident — that they have been 
and are such, will soon be shown. 

" Business men " continually assure 
active [politicians who solicit their coop- 
eration, that they " have no time to at- 
tend to politics," that they " can take no 
part in it because it injures business." 
Those who have been herein described 
hear this and rejoice ; on this current de- 
claration they base their action. They 
have time for it, and they attend to it /or 
the businessmen. It will not myxxe their 
business. 

Thus have the industrial and intellectu- 
al orders of this community prostrated 
themselves and their country before the 
Mammon of unrighteousness. Thus have 
they forgotten and disowned their most 
sacred rights and duties, and left them to 
the off-scouring and scum of civilized so- 
ciety. Thus by them " the shield of the 
mighty was vilely cast away in the midst 
of the battle." Thus, the interests of 
the people, unfortunately entrusted to the 
enterprising and respectable portion of 
the community, were by them betrayed 
in the hour of the commonwealth's great- 
est need, the crisis of peace or war, of 
order or lawlessness, of the protection or 
abandonment of the interests of the go- 
verned by the government. Yes ! that 
very class — the self-righteous, self-wise, 
who most frequently exclaim against the 
imagined evils of universal suffrage, who 
so often lament the admission of the 
poor, the uneducated, the foreign-born, 
the vicious, and the criminal, to the elec- 
tive franchise, and who would be glad to 
see that franchise restricted to themselves, 
— they, and "nobody else," have proved 
themselves unworthy of a freeman's 
birthright, and incapable of their share 
of the responsibilities of a republican 
government. The poor man always 



votes. The prosperous man basely and 
indolently neglects this great duty in 
multiplied instances; and even when he 
pretends to perform it, often makes it of 
no good effect, by a varying and equivo- 
cating ballot, thrown sometimes for one 
set of principles and sometimes for ano- 
ther. 

Noting these facts and their practical 
bearing, with an acuteness cultivated by 
long experience, the adventurous and dis- 
solute establish and defend their position 
in politics by an unanswerable reference 
to them. " Why permit the policy of the 
government to be directed for the benefit 
or protection of those Avho will neither 
act for themselves in politics nor second 
or support those who act and labor for 
them? Rich and prosperous men, and 
those devoted to the pursuits of regular 
traffic, are almost universally selfish, 
narrow-minded, ungrateful, uncharitable. 
By the possession of these very traits 
they acquire their wealth or competence. 
They are glad to have the less fortunate 
work for them gratis. They never pay 
for service rendered, except in cases where 
the law can compel them. In buying and 
selling, in employing and paying the la- 
borer, it is their rule to ' lake every advan- 
tage,' to get as much more for their mer- 
chandize and money than its real value as 
possible, by misrepresentation, exaction, 
or the necessities of those who deal with 
them or labor for them. Men do not 
grow rich or remain so by generosity, 
truthfulness, patriotism, or high-minded 
consideration of the good of others and 
the common benefit of society. We, 
however, denounced by them as immoral 
and dishonest, and excluded from ' good 
society,' are free from many of ' the vices 
of trade,' though in our way we may 
often be less careful to keep ' within the 
statute.' We may cheat the world and 
violate the law of the land ; but we never 
cheat one another as they do, and we 
never break cur own rules nor disregard 
our rules and pledges of honor among 
ourselves. We esteem ourselves better 
gentlemen and better men. The higher 
classes, the privileged orders, the would- 
be aristocracy of wealth would wheedle 
us and use us the day before election, and 
spurn us the day after." 

This is the common sentiment of this 
desperado class, and is often repeated in 
language almost identical with this. With 
these hitler things in their hearts and on 
their tongues, they take their position and 
movement in politics, assuming the pow- 



8 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



er abandoned to them by those whose in- 
jury and humiliation they seek. In their 
war on what is soineiinies regarded as 
the patrician order, they arc joined and 
often led by many who, like the betrayers 
of liberty in Ptorne, descend from their ori- 
ginally iiigher associations to obtain pow- 
er by pandering to the prejudices of the 
ignorant, base and vicious. The very lan- 
guage which Publius Clodius, and Julius 
Caesar, and Marcus Antonius addressed 
to the populace of Rome, and the artful 
appeals to envy and prejudice, by which 
they defeated Cicero, Cato, Brutus and 
CASsius,are here faithfully translated day 
after day, and repeated year after year — 
with the same effect, — by those Avho, in 
republican America renew the woful expe- 
rience of republican Rome, and with lit- 
eral exactness represent the purposes of 
those who then and thus secured, at the 
same instant, the triumph and the death 
of democracy, converting the people's 
power to the people's ruin. This striking 
analogy is not confined to the leaders of 
these movements, their arts of deceit, their 
language, and their purposes. The ma- 
terials, THE INSTRUMENTS with which 

the American Clodii work are identical 
in character and origin with those pos- 
sessed by their Roman prototypes, who, 
in the name of "the largest liberty to all 
men," and with the pretense of " enlarg- 
ing the area of freedom '' by conquest and 
fraud, enslaved the people, cheated them 
of their liberties, and deluged half the 
world with innocent blood. 

The Rome which Julius Cncsar ruled 
numbered not within its walls more hu- 
man beings than are found on the shores 
of the great estuaries which surround the 
Rome of the New World. It had not 
a tithe of the wealth of New York, even 
when enriched by the spoils of the con- 
quered Orient. Had theimmenseintellect 
and enterprise which have here concen- 
ted their mighty energies in the peace- 
ful pursuits of commerce, trade, and use- 
ful art, but been directed by other influ- 
ences in the path of war, by this time the 
Atlantic republic might have ruled by the 
sword, that half of the world which it 
now pervades with its traffic, its inven- 
tions in art, its moral influences, and its 
Christian charities. To ihe characteris- 
tics of its origin does it owe the difl'erence 
of its destiny. The song of the angels 
when they descended to announce to man 
the advent of God incarnate, at the period 
of the census of the Roman empire in the 
acme of the second imperial Csesar's 



triumphant power, was "Peace on earth, 
goodwill to men." However imperfectly 
embodied here the spirit of that revela- 
tion, no man can reasonably doubt that 
its influences have been felt, not only in 
the foundation of the American common- 
wealth, but in the general direction of the 
wonderful power which it has here de- 
veloped in the enterprises of" peace. Yet, 
as has already been shown, the vices of 
peace have grown and flourished in this 
nominally Christian community, with a 
luxuriance equaling, probably surpassing, 
the vilest forms of depravity under the 
full influencesof ancient heathenism. In 
the disregard of human life, and the in- 
security of the rights of properly, in the 
contempt of a solemn oath, in falsehood, 
deceit, and hypocrisy, and in numerous 
other imiaoralilits, republican heathen 
Rome never gave examples cf so abomi- 
nable a character as New York. The 
dissolute classes with whom Catiline, 
Clodius and Antony associated, and 
whose support they secured in their poli- 
tical movements, in their conspiracies and 
riots, are reproduced with aggravated 
characteristics, in the dens of vice and 
crime which arc found throughout this 
and several other American cities. The 
vivid pictures cf those licentious and dan- 
gerous portions of the population of 
Rome and of their haunts, which are gi- 
ven by Sallust and Cicero, will strongly 
impress the considerate American reader 
with the sense of the dangers of like ef- 
fects from like causes here. 

The Mode and Means of the political 
action of these connected orders of crime 
in New York City, remain to be detailed. 
The present law of the Slate of New 
York regulating elections furnishes the 
basis and directs the inanner of fraud. 
In ISiO, the Legislature passed an Act 
relating to the Elections and the Elective 
Franchise, limited in operation to this 
city alone, by which the annual State 
Election in November was confined to 
one day, instead of three, and the various 
Wards were divided into clcction-dis- 
stricis, each containing not more than five 
hundred voters, — all being registered as 
qualified citizens at a specified period be- 
fore each election. The public registra- 
tion of electors in such small sections, fur- 
nished seeming safeguards against fraud, 
by giving opportunity and time fur a rigid 
investigation of the legality of ever\- vote 
by all political parties. The rcductioa 
of the lime from three days to one, 
served under the registry also to diminish 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



greatl}' the facilities for illeo;al voting. 
The actual registration was, however, the 
vital characteristic of the law, and was 
essential to the purity of the ballot. 
Without it, the multiplication of the 
places of voting could only increase the 
means and opportunities of fraud. In 
1842, the registration was abolished by 
act of Legislature ; but the provision 
creating small election-districts was re- 
tained, or re-enacted, and subsequently 
extended to the whole State. The one- 
day clause was also continued and made 
general ; but this, while in one respect 
it seemed to hinder fraud by preventing 
the transfer of illegal voters from one 
section to another at great distance, did, 
on the other hand, withdraw many 
checks by inducing the suspension of 
all inquiry into such crimes except on a 
single day. It is a well-known fact, 
that no party organization can maintain 
any vigilance, or make any successful 
inquisition into election-frauds, for the 
mere purpose of vengeance or of assert- 
ing the law. The moment the polls are 
closed, attention is totally absorbed in 
curiosity as to the result ; and when that 
is known, all interest in politics ceases. 
The victorious party do not care for the 
frauds which their adversaries have com- 
mitted unsuccessfully against them; and 
the defeated cannot be rallied to an in- 
quiry so difficult and disagreeable. If 
the election continued three days, vigil- 
ance would be maintained everywhere to 
the last. Nearly all the lawful votes 
would be deposited on the first day, which 
would of course keep the whole force of 
each party in the field, active and watch- 
ful. During the remainder of the time, 
when non-residents would naturally make 
their attempts at repeated voting, every 
effort would be made to impress them 
with a sense of the danger, by arrests and 
imprisonments, a few instances of which 
at the beginning would be enough to de- 
ter all volunteer cheating. The anxiety 
and interest prevaiUng to the final close 
of the polls would secure an unintermit- 
ted watchfulness which could not be 
frustrated except by violence and riot. 
Without a registration of voters, there- 
fore, it would be belter to allow three 
days for every important election, and 
to have the balloting-places as few and 
as distant from each other as possible. 

Thus, when the registration was abo- 
lished, the multi])lied election districts 
were retained. Why .' The answer will 
be easily furnished from the statements 



following. But upon the very face of 
these modifications of originally honest 
legislation, is evident the fact that they 
made the facilities of fraud boundless, 
and gave to perjury perfect impunity, by 
rendering detection impossible. 

The First division of the various 
forms of fraud, requiring notice in this 
memorial, is what may be denominated 
the irregular, spontaneous illegal voting, 
always occurring among the vicious, 
corrupt, and reckless of every party, and 
sometimes done by thoughtless men, 
ignorant of the moral character of the 
offense, and unacquainted with the 
penalty affixed by the statute which 
punishes not only the successful act, but 
even the attempt to deposit an unauthor- 
ized ballot. In this way, young men less 
than twenty-one years of age are often 
induced to offer their votes. Foreigners 
not yet naturalized, after having merely 
received a certificate that they have 
registered notice of their intention to be- 
come citizens at the end of five years, 
are frequently assured by individuals 
that they have already acquired a right 
to vote, and are brought up to the polls, 
informed on the highest legal authority, 
that they cannot be compelled to pro- 
duce their naturalization papers, but 
may, without showing them, demand the 
oath of citizenship, and thus are made to 
commit unintentional perjury. Many 
American citizens Avho have not yet ac- 
quired a legal residence in the State (one 
year) or in the County (six months) in 
times of high excitement, are so far car- 
ried away from the recollection of the 
law and of moral principle, as to vote, 
either with or withouturging — sometimes 
under oath, but generally only when 
they pass unsuspected and unchallenged. 
Legal voters, also who have deposited 
their ballots at the proper place, and are 
afterwards wandering about at random, 
from one district to another, sometimes 
will, of their own unaided suggestion, 
offer their votes at various polls, and if 
successful, either with or without the 
oath, will consider the act as a mere 
joke, a smart thing of no heinously 
wicked character, and not perilous as to 
legal penalties. In all tliese forms of 
unadvised fraud, the recklessness and 
moral obtuseness created by the free use 
of intoxicating liquors at the time, is 
frequently an incitement and cause ex- 
tensively mischievous. 

These, and other varieties of illegal 
voting are such as arise simply from 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



individual impulse and action, without 
system, direction, instruction or pecuni- 
ary motive, and without the aid and se- 
curity ol any combination to prevent 
detection or punishment. They are, 
therefore, to be carefully distinguished 
from those which are the product of as- 
sociated action, preconcerted arrange- 
ment, general plan, and partisan organi- 
zation. The}' are practiced almost every- 
where, but even in the City arc quite in- 
significant in amount, and seldom effect 
any cliange in the grand result. Here 
they probably seldom exceed a few 
hundreds or a thousand, including all 
parties. They are also easil}' prevented 
by care, determination, and fidelity in 
the in.spectors and challengers. Though 
of itself an evil of abstract importance, 
and giving painful evidence of corruption 
and want of principle, requiring remedy, 
yet these voluntary un-systematic frauds 
vanish from deliberate notice when 
presented by the side of the stupendous 
system of crime elsewhere displayed. ' 

The second division of frauds on the 
ballot includes the whole scheme of un- 
lawful action on the elective power, by 
party organization or by general direction 
or plan of any description. In this por- 
tion of the subject, however, occurs an 
essential distinction, and a classification, 
practical in its character, historical in de- 
signation. This is — the distinction be- 
tween the OLD PL.\N and the nkw pl.^n 
of fraud — which are the terms familiarly 
applied to them in the secret councils of 
their authors and agents. 

Thi: old plan consists of a variety of 
measures regularly put in operation at 
every important election before the pas- 
sage of the Registry law — checked and 
partially suspended during the brief con- 
tinuance of that Act, and lesumed with 
great extensions, upon its repeal. INlany 
ot the contrivances are of very early ori- 
gin and long-tried experiment, the date of 
their invention indeed being at this peri- 
od a matter of merely traditional know- 
ledge, having come down from " a time 
to which the memory of" politicians 
" runneth not contrary." 

Tlie Jirst measure adopted under this 
plan is to bring to the polls every man in 
the city at the time, who can be induced 
to vote their ticket, without po.ssessing 
the legal qualifications of residence, citi- 
zenship, age, &c. All the legal voters 
of that party invariably present them- 
selves with their ballots on election-day, 
without any necessity for effort to bring 



out their legitimate force. The second is 
to bring in persons from other counties 
and States, lor the express purpose of 
giving illegal votes at a particular elec- 
tion, returning to their own homes imme- 
diately afterwards. The (Itird is the 
frauilulent naturalization of foreigners 
under the instigation and management of 
a regularly constituted Committee or As- 
sociation of the party, by whose contriv- 
ance many foreigners, ignorant of the 
requirements of the law and sometimes 
even of the language of the country, are 
brought into the courts and are made to 
testif)- and swear — they know not what, 
in a great number of instances — all fees 
and charges being ])ai(l by those who di- 
rect the fraud. To bring to the polls all 
who can be induced to vote under oath 
upon a mere certificate of having given 
notice of intention to be naturalized at 
the future completion of the legal five 
years' residence, is another tbrm of this 
measure. The fourtii measure is to pro- 
cure and hire persons to go from one 
election-district to another and deposit 
their illegal ballots as many times as pos- 
sible in the course of the day, " swearing 
them in " whenever challenged. The 
great number of voting-places established 
in the city undei' the new law, (seventy- 
nine in all,) has rendered totally unneces- 
sary an expedient used when there was 
but one in each Ward, (amounting to only 
SEVENTEEN in the whole city,) when sys- 
tematic disguises were adopted and men 
were sedulously trained to assume with 
a variety of dresses, a corresponding 
change of look, voice, action, walk and 
manner to enable them to vote many dif- 
ferent times in one day at the same place, 
without risk of detection or sus])icion. 
The retention of the increased number of 
the election districts, when the vital 
clauses of the Regi-stry law were repeal- 
ed, was therefore a great saving of ex- 
pense, labor anil care on the part of those 
who managed this business. Disguises 
are still sometimes assumed, but generally 
rather from taste than from any necessity 
of avoiding risk. 

These measures, it will be observed, 
were all directed to the increase of the 
vote of the party directing them. Ano- 
ther important measure productive often 
of very great eflcct on the result, was the 
diminution of the vote of the opposing 
party by various means. Whenever they 
had the power of locating the polls, they 
studiously placed them, in every possible 
instance, in the most disagreeable and 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



11 



inaccessible situations, where the vicinity 
furnished the greatest facilities for riot 
and disturbance, and for creating annoy- 
ances which were likely to disgust the 
more respectable or aged voters so far as 
to keep many of them away from the 
ballot-boxes. Organized bands of noto- 
rious ruffians and pugilists were also, in 
many districts, employed by them to ob- 
struct the polls, to create tumults, to 
alarm the timid and bully the peaceable, 
and often to molest, insult and assault 
unoffending voters of opposite sentiments. 
By these and many other annoyances, 
many hundreds of lawful votes were 
often kept out of the ballot-boxes. 

By all these agencies of fraud, imposi- 
tion and violence, an enormous difference 
in the vote was uniformly created ; and 
in the great majority of instances, this 
was done with success, through a long 
course of years, completely reversing the 
veritable decision of the people at many 
elections, and rendering futile and null 
the whole principle of (he republican sys- 
tem, — the actual majority being subju- 
gated and governed by a minority com- 
posed of the most ignorant, vicious and 
desperate portion of society, constituting 
the basest -tyranny ever known to the 
civilized world. The registry law, 
though presenting many obstacles to the 
successful and easy operation of this 
system of iniquity, still was far from an 
absolute prevention of the evil. That 

LAW COULD NOT EXECUTE ITSELF. It OUly 

created the means and the necessity of 
action against fraud — action not merely 
on the part of the authorized agents of 
the law, but also on the part of good citi- 
zens generally. Without the continual 
exercise of determined vigilance and en- 
ergy by hundreds of active, experienced 
politicians, the register of electors was 
continually liable to be loaded with thou- 
sands of spurious names, and with those 
of obscure non-residents who could 
crowd their pretended places of abode in 
the populous filthy sections of the city on 
the eve of an election, and disappear as 
soon as their appointed work was done. 
There was hardly one variety of fraud 
that could not still be freely perpetrated 
under that law, unless the most rigid in- 
spection and purgation of the list was 
constantly secured by organized action. 
It was but an accession to the preexist- 
ing resources of the voluntary system of 
prevention. This wasoften neglecteddur- 
ing the existence of the registration. The 
stringent arrangements for watching and 



guarding the polls which should have 
been still enforced, were relaxed ; and the 
old system of fraud, acquiring new and 
ingenious modifications by the exercise 
of invention to evade the statute, was en- 
larged and strengthened in consequence. 

Of all these statements, a most intelligi- 
ble proof, a vivid illustration and a prac- 
tical exemplification can be summarily 
exhibited, by a reference to the statistics 
of the second Charter Election which was 
held here after the repeal of the Registry 
Law. 

In April, 1843, the annual contest for 
the local government of the City of New 
York was renewed, with no more than 
ordinary interest and activity. The party 
then in possession of the actual power 
of the Corporation, though not of the 
Mayoralty, presented as their candidate 
for the chief office, " a man of the peo- 
ple," an intelligent, well-informed, up- 
right, prosperous mechanic, then repre- 
senting the city in the State legislature, 
and previously nominated by his party 
for high and responsible offices, to several 
of which he had been elected. The me- 
chanical class, or a portion of them, made 
a special effort to elect him, as a represen- 
tative of their peculiar political claims 
and interests. The opposing candidate, 
at that time the incumbent, had the una- 
nimous support of his own party, and 
was also favored by many who were 
wholly indifferent to politics, and by a 
few actually pretending to be of the other 
party, on the ground of supposed quali- 
fication as a vigorous and vigilant ma- 
gistrate; though he was a specially odious 
and obnoxious politician, a most unscru- 
pulous and desperate partisan, recklessly 
abusing power and perverting justice for 
factious ends, and neglecting duty when 
the enforcement of the law would have 
secured the just protection of those whose 
rights were above all party claims. 

Between these two candidates and those 
severally associated with them, the con- 
test might have been a close one, if limit- 
ed to the lawful votes of those who came 
to the polls. The abandonment of duty 
by a large portion of one party, from 
dissatisfaction with their position in na- 
tional politics, and the open desertion of 
another portion to the enemy, was part- 
ly compensated by the rally of the me- 
chanical orders around their own pecu- 
liar accepted candidate. But the vari- 
ation of losses and gains left both parties 
unusually near an equipoise. Not suf- 
ficiently informed as to the effect and 



m 



77ie Mystery of Iniquity. 



extent of certain feelings between various 
classes and employments, siuUlenly in- 
voked from a quarter whence such calls 
were unusual, the party of organized 
fraud brought all their resources of crime 
to bear on that contest, and with results 
startling and even a])palling to the most 
hardened among their experienced direc- 
tors of imposition. The repeal of the 
Registry Law, retaining the multiplica- 
tion of election districts (79 instead of 17) 
had given facility to long smothered 
devices of knavery, and security to new 
forms of crime, beyond the conception of 
many who had grown old and respectable 
in these violations of the laws of God 
and man. The sudden removal of all 
obstacles to fraud had given it an im- 
pulse which the masters of that art had 
not calculated. Imposture and perjury 
acquired in a few hours an impetus 
which, unchecked by the pretense of op- 
position, could not he restrained or mode- 
rated cvenbj^ friendly interference. 

The plans of those who ordered the 
movements of the party on that horrid 
da)', were undoubtedly limited to the ex- 
pected exigency. TJic entire force of 
their opponents might be reasonably es- 
timated (after all subtractions for nation- 
al and local schisms,) at about 20,000. 
In this case, mere success, not ostenta- 
tion of supposed force, was the object; 
and a majority of 1,000 was considered 
sufficient for ail practical purposes, if so 
distributed among the several AVards as 
to secure the command of both Board of 
the Common Council. Surplus majori- 
ties are no part of their policy. The ex- 
pense is a matter of some consideration ; 
and a small majority is wisely deemed 
better in general than one which arouses 
suspicion and public denunciation of 
fraud. 

In this particular case, the result out- 
ran these prudential considerations, part- 
ly from an over-estimate of the opposing 
force, and partly from the ease and secu- 
rity with which the suhordinate agents 
found themselves gliding along in their 
movements of fraud. Few or no obsta- 
cles were presented. Challengers were 
few, or unfaithful and negligent, or were 
overawed and silenced by displays of 
violence. In the fifth district of the 
Sixteenth Ward, and in the second dis- 
trict of the Twelfth Ward, organized and 
paid i)ands of rioters, made brutal and 
bloody assaults upon peaceable voters, 
and afterwards upon the police when they 
attempted to preserve order. Many un- 



offending persons were seriously wound- 
ed, and two almost murdered. The 
Common Council, discrediting warnings 
previously given, had made no efficient 
provision for maintaining the peace of the 
city and preventing fraud. The result 
was an ajiparent majority of G,000, ob- 
tained by these means — including more 
than 7,000 deliberate false oaths. The 
darkest day that ever dawned on Gomor- 
rah never closed over so much heaven- 
daring crime against God and man, as 
made up the dread account of this Chris- 
tian city within those few hours. 

The fact was conceded by those who 
committed it — by a few with boasting, — 
by some with jesting, but by many with 
confessed alarm. There was no tiiumph — 
no shouting for the victory — no parade 
of trophies. The processions, ensigns, 
peals of ordnance, with which thai party 
were invariably wont to announce their 
sense of their success, were omitted in 
silence. A subdued and fearful tone per- 
vaded all theorgansof the victors; and the 
wrath of the vanquished was deprecated as 
though the power of reversing the result 
were yet theirs. A public investigation 
and exposure would have justified a re- 
volution in defense of the rights of the 
electoral body against a minority coming 
into power by means so subversive of 
republican government. Individual in- 
quiry was made, and facts were ascer- 
tained, exceeding previous suspicion. 
Apathy, jealousy, and viler motives pre- 
vented the cooperation necessary to com- 
plete success. The whole ma.ss of the 
beaten party returned to their usual in- 
difference to politics, in a few hours after 
the result of the election was announ- 
ced — caring nothing for the particulars of 
the mode in which their defeat was ef- 
fected. But there were a faithful, watch- 
ful few, who shuddered at the products 
of their search into those causes and 
means — whose foreboding hearts felt in 
those discoveries the awful portents of 
similar results in another and more 
eventful strife, when the destiny of the 
nation, the age, the world, should depend 
on the ballot cif this one city. Unaided, 
derided, and abandoned by those who 
had the knowledge of the crime and the 
power of detecting it — unable to sympa- 
thize with the guilty indifference and 
confemjit which thus abetted the treason, 
they could only reserve and store the facts 
obtained, for the prevention of the same 
outrages in coming contests, momentous 
and universal in interest. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



13 



The republican of the ages of classic 
heathenism, in horror of such crimes 
against that universal sanction of hu- 
man testimony and law, the solemn ad- 
juration of the powers invisible and 
eternal, perverted by hideous conspiracy 
to the destruction of the sacred safeguards 
of liberty and justice, would have impre- 
cated on the perjured betrayers of his 
country, the wrath of its tutelar deities, 
and would, by the sable offering and 
mystic rite, have evoked the infernal 
Jove, stern avenger of violated oaths. 



with the merciless Eumenides, and all the 
Stygian train. The Christian freeman, 
helplessly beholding the dieadful prodi- 
gies of modern crime, could but stand 
still, and wait in faith to see the judg- 
ments of the people's Eternal King and 
Divine Protector, who " will not hold 
him guiltless that taketii his name in 
VAIN ;" commending the perjurers and 
their silent, indolent, indifferent abettors 
— alike and together, to the slow but cer- 
tain justice of GOD THE AVENGER. 



The great political contest of 1 844 
was preluded by a series of minor circum- 
stances, local in their origin and charac- 
ter, which gave direction, form and effect 
to the criminal agencies called into action 
through that momentous strife. Howev- 
er novel the inventions of fraud, however 
unexpected the new national questions 
finally presented, however sudden the 
changes of candidates and of the relative 
positions of parties, the incidents which 
controlled the great event were all ante- 
cedent to 1844. The great battle was 
lost and won, beyond retrieval, in 1842 
and 1843. These local preliminary facts, 
therefore, have an import essential to a 
correct deduction of the effects from their 
proper causes. 

The autumnal election of 1843, in New 
York, first developed one of these essen- 
tial facts. The success which was se- 
cured by wholesale fraud and perjury in 
the spring, brought with it varied and 
conflicting obligations. In the dominant 
party, two mutually hostile elements had 
been for a longtime struggling into sepa- 
rate existence. It was ever the policy, 
and often the successful agency of that 
party, to array against each other the va- 
rious classes of the community,— to excite 
and wasje a "social war" between por- 
tions of the pe.ople distinguished from each 
other by occupation, property, position 
and rank, interest, religious opinion or 



place of birth. At one time, it was — the 
supposed natural and universal hostility 
of laborers against their employers, and 
the professional and educated classes ; at 
another time, it was — the imagined an- 
tipathy of mechanics and all other classes 
against the merchants and bankers; at 
another time, it was — of the debtors 
against the creditors, the borrowers 
against the lenders ; at another time, it 
was — of the stock-jobbers and capitalists 
against the speculative and enterprising ; 
at another time, it was — of the success- 
ful and prosperous men of business against 
the unfortunate and the bankrupts; at 
another time, it was — the merchants, and 
especially the importers, against the me- 
chanics and manufacturers; but, very 
uniformly, their great cry was — " the 
poor against the rich ;" and it was always 
— the Romish sectarian against the Pro- 
testant, and the foreign-born against the 
native of a republican country. 

Feeding thus the morbid and ravenous 
appetites of the basest and most malevo- 
lent, with mere clamors and with empty 
denunciations varying in note with every 
breeze, they had gradually, insensibly 
aroused among themselves a spirit of in- 
tolerance and animosity between classes, 
which finally became as perilous to the 
harmony and success of the party, as it 
had been to the peace and good order of 
the community. The mass of naturaliz- 



14 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



ed voters were for a long lime studiously 
trained to habits of disorder and insolence 
in their political action, and were contin- 
ually taught to regard the peaceable por- 
tion of the community and the party as- 
soci.ated with them, and the majority of 
native citizens, as their natural enemies, 
hostile to their continued enjoyment of 
equal political privileges and jealous of 
their intrusion. Assurances were multi- 
plied to them that the party with which 
they generally acted contained their only 
^friends; and that their only security for 
the maintenance of their rights, was the 
ascendency of that party. The strong 
religious sympathies and antij)athies of 
those who were of the Romish sect were 
continually played upon; and the great 
portion of the Protestants, particularly of 
the more cultivated evangelical order, 
who predominated in the opposing party, 
■were charged with desiring and design- 
ing to deprive Papists of their due share 
of the advantages of the public systems 
of education, and to convert the legisla- 
tion of the State and the distribution of 
its bounties, to the dissemination of reli- 
gious opinions hostile to the faith of Rome, 
among children in the public schools. 

The Papists, thus excited, became 
clamorous for new privileges and safe- 
guards, which they iinally extorted from 
their reluctant guardians, who never in- 
tended to put themselves to this trouble 
for them, or to do more than keep awake 
their hostility to the other party, and re- 
tain the great mass of naturalized citizens 
in support of their own schemes for ob- 
taining and retaining political power. 
The services of their " adopted" friends, 
at the polls, in public meetings and in 
riots, were paid onl}' with fine speeches, 
professions of peculiar affection and ad- 
miration for "foreigners," and innumera- 
ble declamations against " the moneyed 
aristocracy," as the natural and deadly 
foes of the democracy and the hard-fisted 
working-men. Of the "spoils of victory" 
won by their labors, they seldom receiv- 
ed even a pittance. From office they 
were almost uniformly excluded by those 
of American birth, who used them but as 
tools and stepping-stones for their per- 
sonal advantage. Year after year, the 
accession of the peculiar friends of the 
«' foreigners" to power brought but this 
result in spite of the dissatisfaction con- 
sequently accumulating. 

The time came at last, when this une- 
qual management of patronage could be 
endured no longer. Emboldened by their 



success in obtaining special legisla- 
tion for sectarian purposes, through their 
rebellious dictation in 1841, they took 
occasion, on the eve of the Charter Elec- 
tion of 1843, to threaten another schism 
and a separate organization, by which 
their previous political associates would 
be inevitably overthrown, and the party 
usually in apparent minority, placed in 
j)Ower almo.st without occasion for effort. 
Their w//?//jo/t(ffi to the chief candidates 
and responsible organizations of the party 
was — the demand of an unequivocal 
promise of "a fair division of the spoils" 
with the largest number of offices given 
to the naturalized citizens, who for some 
years had given more than half and some- 
times nearly two-thirds of the lawful 
votes of that party. They claimed, with 
very little exaggeration, a force of not 
less than 10,000 voters of foreign nativi- 
ty, entitled by every republican u.«age 
and rule to more than half the emolu- 
ments of the government ; and as they 
were confe.'^sedly deficient in qualified 
candidates for their due proportion of the 
more honorable and higher-salaried offi- 
ces, this was to be compensated by yield- 
ing to them a still larger number of ap- 
pointments lower in rank and pay. 

These claims, enforced by threats 
which they had less than two years be- 
fore shown to be of serious significance, 
were, of necessity, recognized by the 
powers that were to be ; and secret as- 
surances weregiven to the claimants, that 
they should no longer be wronged of their 
share of the pecuniary benefits of success, 
and that they should have a full and fair 
apportionment of offices and employ- 
ments. This contract was fulfilled in 
good faith by the dominant party, imme- 
diately after their accession to power. 
A violation or imperfect performance of 
it would have exposed them to certain 
overthrow, and political death from the 
vengeance of their naturalized Iriends. 
AVhcn the usual sweejiing removal of all 
the incumbents took place, hundreds of 
appointments which were demanded and 
expected, as a matter of course, by faith- 
ful partisans of American birth, were con- 
ferred uj)on persons of foreign origin and 
accent, odious to the great ma.'^s of their 
political associates, ami despised b\' them 
for their brutality, ignorance, and their 
enslavement to an obnoxious religion. 
Watchmen, lamp-lighters, street-sweep- 
ers, bell-ringers, dock-masters, &c., &c., 
&c., were found almost exclusively among 
a class who had before been accounted by 



7%e Mystery of Iniquity. 



15 



regularly established " old line" of office- 
holders, as but " the dogs under the table, 
that eat of the children's crumbs." The 
good old rule of distribution, time-hal- 
lowed and precious, had been " Let the 
children be first filled : for it is not meet 
to take the children's bread, and cast it 
to the dogs." 

The disappointment, disgust and wrath 
caused by this new arrangement of the 
policy of patronage, broke forth instan- 
taneously with a power not before appre- 
ciated — a vindictive passion not antici- 
pated — by those who had known these 
agents of political corruption but as the 
servants of party, and who had seen 
their fidelity only when hired and paid, 
and had heedlessly mistaken them for 
slaves, working in bondage, like the 
mass, in the chains of prejudice and 
envious stupidity — without fee or re- 
ward other than the gratification of 
beholding the mortification, injury and 
abasement of those who ranked above 
them in society. They mis-counted the 
weight of these base influences. These, 
however mighty, could not outweigh the 
sense of new wrong inflicted by those 
under whose direction they had sacrificed 
all — honesty, conscience, self-respect, re- 
putation, the good opinion of respectable 
and independent freemen. The outburst 
of the fury thus excited, overbore i'or a 
time all the barriers of party despotism, 
and rent the bonds of foreign thraldom to 
an extent not easily to be repaired. The 
new movement became a flood which 
rose to a bight " unknown within the 
memory of the oldest inhabitant" of the 
sinks of political crime and slavery. The 
" high-water mark" of factious rebellion 
was completely transcended and oblite- 
rated. 

The discontent and disaffection thus 
generated delayed not its manifestations 
to the ordinary period of partisan action. 
Within six weeks after the action of the 
newlv installed municipal government of 
the city, the incipient action was taken. 
At midsummer, a new political body was 
complete in its existence and organiza- 
tion. For the first time in the history of 
American politics, a third party was 
actually formed, capable of sustaining it- 
self in being, after innumerable similar 
efforts in previous years had only brought 
their parentage into deserved ridicule, 
from the despicable character of the in- 
significant, lifeless abortions which had 
been thus produced. Through the summer 
and autumn of 1843, the work of forma- 
tion was carried on by vigorous hands. 



The character and source of the move- 
ment can be sufficiently distingiiished by 
the date of its origin. The defeated party 
was, by nature and habit, incapable of 
an effort to rally immediately after such 
a stunning defeat, however caused. For 
any election of secondary importance, 
they could never organize until the last 
moment. Throughout that season, both 
the mass and the leaders of that party 
remained in complete inaction and indif- 
ference. Their ordinary movement be- 
gan in the usual manner, at the usual 
time, within two months of the election. 
Of the new party, they knew nothing ; 
and the great majority totally discredited 
the reports of its progress and strength. 
They generally regarded it as a mere trick 
of the old enemy to divide them, and 
when assured that it would poll from 
7,000 to 10,000 votes in the fall, declared 
it impossible that it could give over 
2,000, and hardly probable that it would 
amount to more than 1,000. The meet- 
ings of the new party were kept up with 
great animation, and displayed a force 
derived almost exclusively from the ranks 
of the party which had triumphed at the 
Charter Election. Their most prominent 
leaders were persons recently conspicu- 
ous as the worst and most malignant 
enemies of the party previously in pos- 
session of the city government — suddenly 
turned into hostility to their former asso- 
ciates by the manner in which the patro- 
nage of the Corporation had been exer- 
cised to their exclusion. Disappointed 
office-seekers were the nucleus of the 
organization, and the directors of its 
policy. They availed themselves of the 
sectarian rancor of large portions of their 
old part)% revived religious feuds, and 
successfully appealed to the envy with 
which the lowest order of native labor- 
ers and shop-keepers regarded the cheap 
competition of those who from their for- 
eign birth and servile breeding, were ca- 
paiale of existing at much smaller expense 
than those of republican origin. 

The outcries of bigotry and intolerance, 
before unknown to republican America, 
were borrowed from the political vocabu- 
laries of the Old World, which has not 
yet learned to exclude from the afiairs of 
the coMMONWE.vLTH, those questions 
which i)ertain only to the chi'kch, — 
which continually degrades religion by 
forcing its interests into contact with the 
selfish purposes of unprincipled office- 
seekers and office-holders, and ever seeks 
to make those things subjects of legisla- 
tion that are truly only matters of opin- 



16 



37iC Mystery of Iniquity. 



ion and moral suasion. " Misckre hu- 
MANA DiviNAQiE" — '« to mingle human 
things with divine" — was an outrage 
upon the conscience and judgment of 
man unenlightened by revelation, revolt- 
ing to tlie moral sense ol" even the Roman 
of that corrupt age which is blackened 
in the memory and records of the human 
race by tiie betrayal and death of classic 
democracy. To American republicanism, 
had hitherto been given the peculiar hon- 
or of marking and maintaining ibis vital 
distinction, by the obliteration of which 
for 2000 years, man's terrors of the retri- 
butions of the next world had been made 
the means of his degradation, ruin, and 
enslavement in this. The new party 
was ?L foreign party, in every lineament 
of its physiognomy, and in every circum- 
stance of its origin. While it usurped 
and blasphemed the name of " Ameri- 
can" and "republican," it derived its 
principles and policy from hrutal IJritish 
bigotry and the bloody lawlessness of 
Swiss and German revolutionary radical- 
ism. Its incipient movements were aid- 
ed by the presence of foreigners, who 
thronged its assemblies at all times, fur- 
nishing the watch-words of the new 
faction, and giving the key-note of its 
anthems, the responses of its blasphe- 
mous orgies, from the exploded formula- 
ries of disbanded Orange lodges and of 
outcast European fanaticism. Learn- 
ing from such teachers the mode of asso- 
ciating religious jealousies with political 
advantage, the native grog-shop-keepers, 
rooted out of their richest wallowing- 
places by the competition of German 
Schlossen, Zum-what-not-fStadten, and 
Bier-Hansen, Ga.st-Hau.sen, &c., innu- 
merable, of jaw-dislocating and throat- 
rasping roughness of designation, rushed 
into the movement for the exclusion of 
foreigners from all offices of trust and 
profit, including that most rc.'ijion.sible 
privilege of dealing out liquors at three 
cents a glass under the authority and ap- 
pointment of the State. Thus met in 
new war the belore harmonious elements 
of bigotry and vice from both divisions 
of the world, while, over all, the cold- 
blooded, calculating spirit of democratic 
American office-seeking fraud presided as 
tlie inciting and directing cause, and 
made the Hible the stepping-stone and 
footstool of political power. 

The most ignorant and proverbially fa- 
natical Protestant sects, (a large majority 
of whom are always associated with the 
political jiarty which panders to envious 



vulgarity,) joined, almost en masse, in the 
foreign war-cry of "No Poper)'" — a sound 
novel to American cars. They were 
soon joined by others, connected with 
them in but few points of religious asso- 
ciation, and sympathetic only in hatred 
of a common enemy, not in Christian 
" love of one another." 

The result of this attempted " consort 
of Chri.st with Belial"' was, that in the 
autumnal election of 1843, with 5000 
votes drawn from the ranks of the party 
of corriiption, were given 3800 from 
their old oj)ponents. The ordinary agen- 
cies of " the old plan" of fraud were 
freely employed ; and " the regular 
ticket" of the corruptionists received a 
little less than 15,000 votes, on an aver- 
age, while the ballots of the faithful, 
law-abiding portion of the community 
amounted to a little more than 14,000. 
The loss of 5000 votes to one party was 
more easily repaired to it than that of 
3800 to the other. The first had but to 
extend its .system of fraud ; the second, 
repelling the thought of such agencies, 
had no remedy or preventive of evil but 
vainly to present the unity of its cause — 
the necessity of the exclusion of all local, 
temporary, extraneous issues, on the eve 
of a great national contest. 

The Charter Election of the spring of 
1844, the verj- year of national destiny, 
opened under these auspices. The two 
old parties organized and acted as usual. 
That which had the lawful majority could 
but present to its usual supporters the 
plain fact, that the retention of their full 
force at the previous autumnal election 
would have given them eveiy office, be- 
sides the moral effect of a plurality in 
the city, with the evidence of a division 
in the ranks of their opponent.*;. Jjut 
such representations were made to those 
who were worse than deaf and blind- 
to many who were ready at any lime to 
sell their votes to whatever part^- would 
rai.se the value of any properly then in 
their hands — State stocks, real estate, or 
anything else — men who were ever 
ready to betray their countrj-'s interests 
for their own temporary gain. Vet, sur- 
pri.sing as it may seem, each one of these 
men would have con.sidered him.self in- 
sulted by an offer to betray any other 
moral obligation for money — as, for in- 
stance, to sell the honor of liis wife, the 
liberty of his child — but only because, 
in so doing, he would destroy his domes- 
tic peace, and mar his sellish gold- 
bought comforts. 



Tfie Mystery of Iniquity. 



17 



Thus was the preliminary contest of 
that eventful year heralded. Ten thou- 
sand true voters were pledged to abide 
by their principles, even to the rising of 
the sun on the election day. Fifteen 
thousand were equally resolved to give 
their ballots to the new party's candi- 
dates. The gamblers and speculators in 
elections had noted these movements, 
changes, and pledges, with a wary eye. 
Twenty thousand votes would be more 
than enough to secure victory to the 
ordinary agencies of fraud, in this posi- 
tion of matters. Trusting to the politi- 
cal honor of those whom no wise man 
will ever again entrust with his personal 
interests, hopes, or fame, they staked 
their money freely and boldly, and lost 
it as freely. . Between the rising and the 
setting sun of that day, 5000 votes were 
changed, which reversed the destiny not 
mere!}' of that day, but of the age. 

Not a gambler or a cheat that lost his 
money on that issue but rose the day 
after both " a sadder and a wiser man." 
Barclay Street and Park Row were half- 
beggared by the result. Yet, when in a 
politico-religious controversy, the Five 
Points and Corlaer's Hook were, for the 
first time, arra)'ed against each other, 
what speculator in politics could safely 
judge ? Who could have known, except 
by examining both sections on Dens's 
Theology and the Assembly's Catechism, 
that one was Popish and the other vehe- 
mently Protestant .' — when " democracy" 
was divided against itself — this part de- 
claring that they would be damned if 
they would have the Bible in the schools, 
and that part swearing that they would 
be damned if they wouldn't. 

The history of that folly is already 
written, closed and sealed. Few will 
care to remember that the party which 
thus originated, expired at last in a sort 
of collapsed stage of a moral spasmodic 
cholera, having so exhausted itself with 
repeated vomitings forth of the undigest- 
ed abominations which it had too hastily 
swallowed, that it was fiaally destroyed 
by strangling v/ith an ineffectual convul- 
sive effort to disgorge the nauseous re- 
mainder. 

The gamblers, and the leaders, and 
candidates of the ejected party were 
rendered desperate by the result; but 
when they are desperate they are danger- 
ous ; for " desperate men do desperate 
things." Few of them had ever seen 
darker hours for their political prospects 
or their pecuniary hopes. They saw 
2 



around them a divided party, defeated 
by division. They saw its all-destruc- 
tive energies, baffled without, (notwith- 
standing the aid of treachery which they 
had encouraged in gibbering foll)^) 
grown SELF- destructive, — scorpion-like, 
turning its venomous and deadly sting 
upon its own vitals. They saw arrayed 
against them in brighter hope and more 
united force than ever before, even when 
on the eve of unparalleled victory, the 
millions of a host invincible by any honest 
and legal means — mighty not only by the 
power of democratic numbers, the pros- 
perous harmony of all orders and occu- 
pations under beneficent protective legis- 
lation, and the nobly vindictive courage 
of patriotic spirit conscious of real strength 
to assert and completely execute a just 
popular judgment checked in it.s inci2)ient 
performance only by mercenary knavery 
and corruption, — but above all, exulting 
in the long-deferred opportunity to render 
justice and honor to the man of their en- 
thusiastic admiring choice, deriving new 
strength and confidence in their renewed 
labors, from his towering greatness and 
pure renown. The whole party through- 
out the nation was united in singleness 
and community of purpose, in principle 
and policy, as perfectly as in the se- 
lection of their great representative. 

These views and impressions of the 
prospects of parties were not conluied to 
the defeated section in this city, but per- 
vaded the minds of its leaders and guides 
in every portion of the countr}-, but 
especially at the seat of the General 
Government. From the summer of the 
year 1843, the portents of their downfall 
and lasting exclusion from power had 
been multiplying ; and every new move- 
ment continued to distract and weaken 
them while it increased popular confi- 
dence in the fortunes of their powerful 
foes. 

The certain existence of a rapidly in- 
creasing majority of the States and people 
against them, was known and considered 
in their secret councils from the highest 
to the lowest place. Contemplating the 
threatened defeat as the complete anni- 
hilation of their party and the ruin of 
all their schemes of personal ambition, 
the oldest and greatest of that formidable 
league of corrupt, unprincipled and des- 
perate politicians did not lor a moment 
hesitate to seek the invention and em- 
ployment of unlawful, wicked moans, by 
Avhich the constitutional majority of the 
people coukl be overwhelmed and the 



18 



The Mtjslery of Iniquity. 



public judgment be falsely declared from 
the polls. No man knowing the char- 
acter of lho.se men whose political for- 
tunes and personal interests were thus 
depending on the result can believe them 
incapable of any enormity of fraud and 
corruption which they might deem ne- 
cessary to save their party from destruc- 
tion and themselves Irom powerless 
obscurity. They had all been trained 
and habituated for years to falsehood and 
the most wanton disregard of the princi- 
ples of morality and honor in their rela- 
tions to the public. The accomplishment 
of a political object, the success of a 
party, is always considered by such men 
as a purpose so good in itself as to 
justify all means neccs.sary to that end, 
or at any rate to make crime a matter of 
iudilFercnce or trilling moral importance. 

At an early period in the year 1844, 
the fact of a dehciency of votes in a ma- 
jority of the States for the candidates 
of that party (whoever might be nomi- 
nated) was communicated among the 
responsible leaders and managers all over 
the country ; and the .sense of the ne- 
cessity of supplying that deficiency by 
fraud was simultaneou.'ily impressed on 
all, while the publications and organs of 
the party in every quarter studiously 
maintained a stout show' of confidence in 
a certain victory by the lawful suttrages 
of the people. The directors and agents 
being duly possessed of this fact, took 
care to obtain fu-.st a ju.st and veritable 
estimate of the actual numbers of the 
lawful voters of their own party, and of 
those opposed to them. After doing 
this \ysL-i assigned to the same partisan 
agents, or still more tru.stworthy ami 
resjMjctable men selected as their repre- 
sentatives, the mighty task of creating 
in all the various practicable sections and 
counties a fictitiou.s equivalent to the 
small lawful majority of voters positively 
known to e.\i.st against them in each. 
This measure, or system of measures 
■was, through safe and determined men, 
put in operation in every part ol the 
United States throughout the year 1844. 
Before the 4th of March in that year, the 
plan was completed, and was in incipient 
operation from the extreme northeast to 
the remotest southwest. The direction 
was central. The apparent origin. of the 
scheme was in the National Cajjilal ; hut 
there were some in the great original seat 
of fraud, who knew from what .source 
the primary suggestions of the scheme 
had proceeied, who could trace in the 



liistory of New York legislation and in 
the character of a peculiar portion of a 
New York population, the composition 
of details suited especially to previous 
political emergencies in this great school 
and scene of political crime. 

The associated gamblers and criminals 
of the city of New York had for many 
years maintained a peculiar conne.vion 
with the cognate fraternity of political 
adventurers and speculators who formed 
the nucleus and directive agency of " the 
parly" here. Distinct in organization, 
ihough often possessing some members 
in common, the.se two sub-communities 
of knavery had subsisted, each in its 
own sphere, but in a sympathetic con- 
tact, productive of reciprocal prolit in- 
calculably great, and consequently ac- 
cumulating durability by duration. 

The gamblers had long been in the 
habit of paying to the responsible agents 
of the party with which they were thus 
as.sociated, a large sum of money just be- 
fore each elcctioji, as a consideration for 
secret political intelligence upon which 
they could make their betting calcula- 
tions, and also as a means of bringing 
about the purposed eflccts which consti- 
tuted the certain details of success. The 
authoiized General Committee of the par- 
ty made an exact, thorough canvass of 
the actual lawful vote of the city just be- 
fore each election, and, upon that, deci- 
ded how many S})urious votes were want- 
ed to secure practical results, and wlicre 
they were wanted and could be desira- 
bly bestowed. They could announce to 
their secret allies, with great precision, 
the real majorities against them ; and 
then they arranged with them, in like 
precision, the exact a])pareiit majorities 
in every ward or district, which were to 
be produced by their joint means and 
agencies in the manufacture of false 
votes. The sum raised by the ganibleis, 
and contributed to the party treasury as 
their equivalent for secret intelligence, 
was S3t)()0 in the spring of 1S44, and did 
not mucii vary Irom that amount for some 
time previous. This both paid the ex- 
penses of the laborious preliminary can- 
va.ss, and furnished means for making 
good its deficiencies by illegal ballots. 
The gamblers could al.so furnish the in- 
struments and agents or fiaud from 
among their retainers and dependents. 
All the poweiiul indiiences of the law- 
less and criminal class of the community 
were within their reach. The conscious- 
ness of a common character and purpose. 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



19 



connecting them securely with those who 
avowedly Jived by statute-breaking vil- 
lany, was a tie of irresistible, mutually 
attractive force, which enabled them to 
communicate always with perfect confi- 
dence and safety. They could therefore, 
at the briefest notice, call out an auxiliary 
legion as prompt to execute the measures 
of fraud as their patrons were ingenious 
to design, invent or direct. 

With the information thus distinctly 
furnished, the gamblers conld always 
make the business of " betting on elec- 
tions" a game of skill and certainty to 
themselves — a game of chance only to 
fools. The number of lawful votes be- 
longing to each party in each Ward, the 
number of absentees, of doubtful and un- 
decided voters, the number of illegal votes 
required and secured to produce the de- 
sired majorities, the amount of those ma- 
forities in every instance, with an exact- 
ness varying only by tens in a Ward, and 
by hundreds in the whole city — were all 
fixed data foreknown to the gamblers and 
" sporting characters" through revela- 
tions thus given. The secresy, vigi- 
lance and activity necessary to the safe 
and sure retention of these matters among 
the favored class, were easily maintained 
by a body of men with faculties so sharp- 
ened and disciplined by continued exer- 
cise in unlawful, dishonest pursuits. 
Honest men, or those habituated only to 
pursuit of gain by open, respectable bu- 
siness, would be, intellectually as well as 
morally, less capable of the tasks involved 
in such an undertaking. The secret might 
escape, by occasional relaxation of the 
needful self-restraint and caution : the 
needful measures would be often neglect- 
ed ; and the execution of deep plans 
would often fail by deficient arrange- 
ments, if they were left to any men but 
such as were occupied habitually in con- 
cealing their own gainful violations of 
the law of the land and of the decent usa- 
ges of respectable society. 

The importance and value of the busi- 
ness of betting on elections made it wor- 
thy of the expenditure of time, money and 
labor which was so freely lavished on 
these preparations. It opened a much 
wider and higher field to the operations 
of the craft than was furnished iii the 
dark dens and closely-curhiined saloons 
of the professional gamblers and their 
victims. Long usage and the tolerated 
irregularities of high political excitement 
had made this form of gambling nomi- 
nally respectable, — a little more so than 



the same operations on the race-course. 
It was the most dignified and respectable 
variety of the gamester-craft, sanctioned 
by the public example of many of the 
most honorable men in society. Editors, 
high office-holders, merchants and others 
of well-established character, in both par- 
ties, encouraged it by word and action. 
The vice was excused, or justified, on the 
ground that it was necessary to offer and 
take wagers publicly, in order to evince, 
to the doubtful and wavering portion of 
the community, a proper confidence in 
the success of the partj^ and thus to re- 
tain many votes which are always re- 
served to the last, and are then given to 
that which appears to be the strongest 
side. Under these pretenses and influ- 
ences, were brought within the reach of 
professional gamblers, many who could 
in no other way be induced to put them- 
selves in the power of such persons. 
Thousands who would gamble in noth- 
ing else, gambled largely in politics, with- 
out shame or scruple, and eagerly rushed 
into this disgraceful competition with the 
outcasts of society, till, for some months, 
the whole country seemed turned into 
one great race-course, fancy-stock ex- 
change, or gaming-house, where the 
slang of jockeys, brokers, faro- bankers 
and thimble-riggers was converted to the 
expression of political chances, displac- 
ing the decent language in which patriots 
and republicans were wont, in better 
days, to speak of the dangers of the com- 
monwealth and the duties of the citizen. 
In all places of public resort, in the 
streets, the hotels, the oyster-shops, evc- 
ly political discussion was almost inevi- 
tably terminated by the tender of a wager 
from some of the gamblers or their agents, 
who were continually prowling around, 
and seeking to provoke or worry incau- 
tious men into " backing up their opin- 
ion with their money." 

The effect on the result, designed and 
soon produced by such operations, was 
THIS. At least half a million of dollars 
was offered, pledged and secured to the 
gamblina: fraternity and their political 
coadjutors, by the professed friends of 
morality, order, peace and protective 
legislation, upon which they might draw, 
a few months after sight, to i)ay all the 
expenses of the election. A much larger 
amount than this was staked ; but this 
sum was earl)- secured by the professional 
speculators in elections ; and it was for 
them to decide how much of this amount 
it was necessary to anticipate in cxpendi- 



20 



TTie Mystery of Iniquity. 



tures to insure their bets. Five hundred 
thousand dollars ? With half the money, 
they could beat the ttiongest candidate 
ever presented by any pany ! 

The knowledge ol the existence of a 

Eiowerful majority of the peoi>le, equiva- 
ent to a similar majority in the electoral 
colleges, ap;ainst the party of corruption 
and Iraud, had caused deliberate prepara- 
tions on their part to nullify the popular 
will, in the very opening of the year 
1844. At that time, their prospects vere 
darkest; and it was nmid the alarm of 
multiplied and accumulating defeats that 
their desperate resolution was taken never 
to be dei'eated for lack of votes, though 
they lacked voters. In the National 
Cajjital, while external dangers and in- 
ternal strifes shook and rent that once 
formidable party almost to dissolution, 
was Ibrmed the most awful conspiracy 
ag.ainst popular liberty ever known since 
that of Catiline. The more imminent the 
peril of that threatened overthrow with 
its consequent damnation, dreary, hope- 
less, irretrievable, eternal — the more en- 
ergetic was the movement to avert such 
destruction, and the more reckless were 
the actors as to the moral character of 
the means necessary for their preserva- 
tion. This, the details, in due time and 
place forthcoming, will show. 

The spring of 1844 brought a material 
change of events and movements, — es- 
pecially of those which centred in the 
commercial metropolis, b}'' the organiza- 
tion of a " third party." Originally ope- 
rating only to the division and injury of 
that corrupt party which had been in the 
ascendency in 1843, had been made, by 
treachery and folly, a means of disorgan- 
izing and weakening the other great 
parly, which was then making prepara- 
tions for the mighty contest for the re- 
covery of the power in the nation and 
.State, that had been meanly stolen from 
them after they had so nobly won it in 
1840. The original nucleus of rejected 
office-seekers, in whose revengeful and 
envious covetousncss the new pany had 
its origin, might have been content to 
secure the overthrow of the faction from 
which they had seceded, by withholding 
their 5000 votes from their old associates, 
and thus allowing the ju.st cause of the 
other party to succeed. But a want of 
unity and confidence prevented that un- 
fortunate party from availinsr themselves 
of such an opportunity. Unable to ap- 
preciate the strength and advantage of 
their position, they were led to abandon 



it and assume all the responsibility of 
that malignant hostility to naturalized 
citizens that originated tlie new move- 
ment, and which was before confessedly 
im])utable only to a revolted section of 
their opponents. They at once sacriticed 
that respectable portion of the naturalized 
voters whose confidence in the justice 
and wisdom of their policy was then 
strong and fast increasing, and drove 
them to hostile measures of self-preserva- 
tion. The coalition with an unprinci- 
pled faction, on the assumption of a new 
and un-republican jninciple, was fatal 
to the rising energy of the great national 
cause. 

I)ut while many were induced to com- 
mit this folly in thoughtles.sncss and igno- 
rance, there were others who in part 
foreknew and ■purposed the evil. There 
was a small body of men nominally con- 
nected with the betrayed party, insignifi- 
cant in numbers and influence, odious to 
the great mass of their old political asso- 
ciates from their opposition to the Presi- 
dential candidate who had ibr years been 
justly regarded by millions as the repre- 
sentative and embodiment of their jninci- 
plcs, and as the man most capable of 
realizing their hopes and effecting their 
objects. This little faction, knowing 
that they had nothing to hope from the 
man whom they had so long ojijiosed, 
and so often sought to betray, beheld 
with small satisfaction the prospect 
of his election without their aid, in a 
manner which would render him free 
from all obligation to them. Few though 
they were, they were formidable by their 
great wealth, being almost the only per- 
sons in the city who were both able and 
willing to employ their money freely in 
politics ; and it was their de-sire and jioli- 
cy that the jiarty with which they were 
connected should be so placed as to tri- 
um])h only by their assistance. As soon 
as the new movement attracted their at- 
tention in the autumn of 18-13, they saw 
in it at once the means of creating a 
powerful independent force, aiul sought 
to make the third party a rallying point 
for their future ojjerations. They joined 
the new faction, encouraged it by word 
and by pecuniary contributions, and la- 
bored vigorously to give it firmness, con- 
sistency and- permanence. Their object 
was to wield a mass of votes which 
should be essential to the success of the 
National party with which they were 
foimerly a.«.'<ociatcd, and to elect to the 
State and National legislatures a separate 



The Mystery of Iviqidty. 



21 



boJy of representatives Mho would hold 
the balance of power, and keep the Presi- 
dent in check, unless he should yield to 
their dictation or recognize their claims. 
Looking still farther forward, they saw in 
the new party a basis for their operations on 
the next succeeding Presidential election, 
when their own favorite candidate, ob- 
noxious to multitudes of his former asso- 
ciates, would be enabled to stand on his 
own peculiar ground, as the champiou of 
a new cause, independent of that which 
he had once deserted. These purposes 
would have been accomplished, but for 
the success ot the system of fraud which 
was put in operation for the defeat of 
their enterprise, as well as of the National 
party on whose triumph their own ob- 
jects depended. Such a defeat they did 
not anticipate. They were so confident 
of the success of the great candidate, that 
thej^ had imagined it safe to diminish his 
strength, in order to make him seem to 
ow'e his success to the votes which they 
claimed to control through the new party. 

This fatal movement was marked by 
the desperate foe — so vigilant and sus- 
picious ; and they did not fail to use all 
means to profit by it. They immediately 
roused the whole mass of adopted citi- 
zens throughout the Union to a sense of 
their danger from the success of the new 
coalition. They everywhere denounced 
the proposed exclusion of naturalized 
citizens from office and from the elective 
franchise, and placed themselves boldly 
in view as the protectors of the threat- 
ened rights of that portion of the people. 
They thus secured to themselves, in 
solid mass, many tens and scores of 
thousands of voters totally indifferent to 
all other political questions in compari- 
son with the vital interests of their own 
class. Thousands of educated foreigners, 
who were before content with a residence 
under the protection of equal laws, and 
had neglected the privilege of voting, 
now rushed witb animated zeal into the 
great poliiical struggle, in which they 
would otherwise have taken no part. 
Many others, whose strong personal 
admiration of the greatest man of the 
nation had alwaj^s made them resolve 
to aid his election, were suddenly driven 
back from his support by seeing his 
friends associated with their avowed, 
malignant enemies. 

INlanagement was also used, by the 
same direction, to prevent any loss to 
their Presidential and Gubernatorial tick- 
ets from the adhesion of their dissatisfied 



partisans merely to the third party's 
nominations for Congress and the State 
Legislature. Very little effort was neces- 
sary. The new party avowedly left its 
members free to act with their previous 
political associates severally, in the elec- 
tion of the executive officers of the State 
and General Government; and they did 
so. Whatever encouragement was given 
by knaves to dupes in regard to any pro- 
posed " bargain," by which the third 
party should give its votes to the Presiden- 
tial Electors of one of the two National 
parties in return for votes given to their 
candidates for Congress and the Legisla- 
ture, no man of sense needed any argu- 
ment to expose a cheat so palpable. There 
could be no bargain where but one of 
the parties had anything to give. Every 
member of the new faction \^as at the 
same time a devoted adherent of that one 
of the two parties with which he had 
previously agreed, on all points save the 
boasted " one idea" of exclusion of all 
but natives from office. There was no 
power in the coalition, or in any set of 
men, to transfer a single vote from one 
of the two original parties to the other ; 
and, since the election, thej' have de- 
clared that fact, and gloried in it. 

The action of the great National Con- 
ventions of the two parties, for the nomi- 
nation of candidates for the Presidency, 
which took place in Baltimore in May, 
1844, had in both instances a great mod- 
ifying effect on the aspect of the contest. 
Li the first case, the nomination for the 
Presidency had fortunately been fore- 
stalled by the action of the people them- 
selves, and was not entrusted to the hur- 
ried decision of an accidental assembly 
of ill-advised political aspirants, collected 
but for a day or two, and subjected to 
the management of a few artful manoeu- 
vrers and prejudiced, envious, short- 
sighted intriguers. I'tie nomination for 
the Vice-Presidency, notwithstanding the 
wofnl experience of the time, had been 
left by the party, without reserve or in- 
struction, to be determined by an incom- 
petent body, who, in conformity with a 
principle almost universal in its applica- 
tion, hesitating between the three promi- 
nent candidates, solved the doubt by 
hastily throwing their votes for another 
whose claims had been but for two weeks 
suggested, and had never been canvassed. 
They nominated a most eminent, patri- 
otic, and able man, of a fame so nobly 
elevated, that envious malignity had des- 
paired of reaching it with calumny, yet 



22 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



of a worth so modest anil unobtrusive, 
that jealous ambition ha.l never been 
aroused among his political associates by 
a competition for public honors with 
his exalted and immaculate excellence. 
The honor, unsought and unexpected by 
him, sought kim, and was forced upon 
him with a power that lelt him no course 
but calmly and conscientiously to assume 
and sustain the responsibility. Through 
all the liery trials of that merciless con- 
test, he passed, with a jiurity unscathed, 
untouched. The only reproach uttered 
against him by the most malignant and 
daring political enmity, was — the impu- 
tation of virtues, good works, and reli- 
gious merits, by which he was " made 
meet to be partaker of the inheritance 
of the saints in light," rather than to 
share the earthly dominion of " the spirit 
that now workctb in the children of 
disobedience." A better or purer man, 
one more unimpeachable, or unaj)proach- 
able by falsehood, could not be named — 
•' his enemies themselves being judge.s." 

But the introduction of the name of 
such a candidate, at that ])eculiar mo- 
ment, so critical in the evolution of the 
destiny of the nation and the world, was 
fraught with conse(iueuces most unfortu- 
nate and mortal to the hopes and purposes 
of the age. Timing, as it did, with the 
recent organization of a new party, be- 
tween the two great natural moral and 
political divisions of American societ)', 
which developed a professedly reUgioits 
and sectarian element, before dormant in 
civil relations, it bore the seeming of an 
attempt to conciliate, and associate with 
a cause already strong enough in its moral 
position, a faction base in the mercenary 
and prejudiced motives of its origin, and 
soon defiled with the blood of en.slaved, 
alarmed victims of sujjcrstition, and 
blackened with the smoke of burning 
churches, in which God, the Son of God, 
was devoutly, though imjjurely and igno- 
rantly worshijicd. It aroused, moreover, 
in a hundred thousand hearts, the pulsa- 
tions of a long slumbering animosity to 
certain peculiar forms of religious bene- 
volence, with which that pure and honor- 
ed name was associated. P'or, this en- 
lightened country, like all Christendom, 
hebl within it many, who though gifted 
by God with the full knowledge of their 
duties to the commonwealtli and to them- 
selves, in all their noble relations to their 
lace and kind, as atiected by the action of 
republican electors, of sovereign yet mu- 
tually dependent freemen, had never 



raised or widened their spiritual vision 
to the view of a Christian philanthropy, 
vast as the moral necessities of the world, 
and boundless as the interests of eternity. 
There were many, faithful and true to 
their country and their political duty, not 
prepared in Providence lor this assump- 
tion of novel and untried responsibilities, 
whose warm and loyal hearts shrunk 
from this announcement of a name already 
half-forgotten in its connexion with tem- 
poral interests, and cherished oidy from 
its association with the honor of Him 
who.se " Kingdom is not of this world." 
That name added no strength to the cause 
of wise and righteous government, while 
it took much from it. Multitudes devoted 
to the faith of Rome, and others hold- 
ing tenets not technically orthodox and 
evangelical, were led to forget their sense 
of duty to their political principles, by a 
new dread of promoting the triumph of 
what they considered heresy, bigotry and 
fanaticism. Though thousands were 
faithful, notwithstanding any or all of 
these deadly influences, " faithful even 
unto death," tens of thousands were dri- 
ven from their only associations with the 
cause of peace, purity, justice and truth. 
The melancholy moral of this move- 
ment was — that the fust duty of all Chris- 
tians in their j)olitical relations is to re- 
gard THE INITV OF THE CAUSE, tO be 

content with giving and seeking only 
such votes as belong to the civil objects 
which they profess, and never to attempt 
to conciliate unpatriotic religious preten- 
sion, by offering to make such atonement 
for sin falsely imputed by disguised infi- 
delity, [t taught all wlio beheld and ex- 
perienced the conseijuences of that wan- 
ton and vainly guileful scheme, that the 
basest and most wicked hy]>ocrisy is the 
"homage" thus ])aid by virtue to vice, 
in comparison with which, common hypo- 
crisy, " the homage that vice pays to vir- 
tue," is holy and honorable. 

That nomination to the second office of 
the Federal Kupublit invited the repetition 
of every imaginable exploded calumnious 
device against the jiersonal moral charac- 
ter of him who needed to ask no forgivc- 
nessof his country, which he had served so 
faithfully, however to the neglect of what 
every sinful man owes to his God. The 
professional gamblers, debauchees, cheats 
and murderers instantaneously broke out 
in accusation of a man who, had he been 
a thousand times worse than their lying 
slanders represented him, might iiave well 
denied their competency to judge him, 



The Mijsterij of Imquily. 



23 



by saying to his profligate accusers — 
" Let him that is without such sin among 
you, cast the first stone at me." Faith- 
ful and blameless in all his personal, do- 
mestic and social relations — unstained by 
even an imputation of falsehood, disho- 
nesty, deception, double-dealing or hypo- 
crisy — famed throughout his life for scru- 
pulous compliance with every public and 
private engagement, and for the careful 
discharge of every pecuniary obligation, 
either legally expressed or remotely im- 
plied — frank, sincere, generous, unsuspi- 
cious, conhding, and boldly truthful — he 
presented in his character a model of 
many virtues especially rare among Ame- 
ricans, and nobly worthy of imitation by 
the rising generation of his enthusiastic 
compatriots, in whose hearts he reigned 
with an unequaled power, founded on 
love, reverence and respect for his moral 
traits, as well as on admiration for his 
great intellectuiil endowments. 

The gamblers, the speculators in fraud, 
the abettors of peculation and perjury, 
the shameless slaves of intemperance and 
licentiousness, the habitual cheats and 
liars, the extortioners, smugglers and dis- 
honest bankrupts — all combined their 
means, and made pecuniary contributions 
to print and circulate papers and tracts 
on " the Morals of Politics," in which 
the character of the Presidential candi- 
date of the party opposed to them was 
exhibited to the religious and conscien- 
tious portion of the community, as stain- 
ed with the most odious, degrading vices, 
blackened with revolting crimes, and fla- 
grant outrages on decency and piety, with 
corruption, treachery, deceit, mercenary 
violation of public obligations, and with 
a multiplicity and variety of wickedness 
unparalleled in any instance on record. 
While under agencies thus originated and 
directed, the consciences of rigid moralists 
and Evangelical Protestants were disturb- 
ed and perplexed, the jealousy of Papists, 
Liberal sects, philosophical sceptics and 
inlidels, was kindled to perfect fury by 
similarly studious inventions, circulated 
among them, as to the bigoted zeal and 
gloomy, exclusive Calvinism of the candi- 
date for the Vice-Presidency. From the 
nomination to the Election, this double 
system of calumny was in operation on 
tiie prejudices of the various religious 
divisions of the people in every county 
and town in the Union. Herod and Pi- 
late, the Pharisees and iSadducees, the hy- 
pocrite and the blasphemer, were united 
in the harmonious enforcement of this 



monstrous scheme of scurrilous abuse and 
sneaking detraction. 

The grand plan of operations concerted 
before the close of 1843, and communi- 
cated in every portionof the Union, where 
an effort was needful and practicable, re- 
quired, iirst, a complete and exact secret 
legistration of the whole actual force of 
their own party, and of the other— with 
an estimate of the eflfect of all new causes, 
then in continuous operation, tending 1o 
increase or diminish either, and with due 
provision for the repeated correction of 
this account of moral agencies down to 
the very eve of the great election. The 
primary political position of each indivi- 
dual in the mass, as determined hy his 
opinions, judgment, self-interest, preju- 
dice, passion, or personal feeling, was but 
one item in the account — the fundamental 
element of the calculation. The final so- 
lution of the great problem was attained 
by numberless additions and subtractions 
of " disturbing causes." The influence 
of new questions (not originally partisan) 
as to " protection," naturalization, " an- 
nexation," was duly measured and reck- 
oned. The operation of one-sided impu- 
tations made by themselves was also care- 
fully weighed — of the terrors of abolition 
at the South, and the hatred of slavery in 
the North — of the abhorrence of fanati- 
cism and hypocrisy by infidels and ration- 
alists, and the dread of imputed immoral- 
ity and licentiousness by " the most 
straitest sect." The effect of the attempt- 
ed formation of anew " third party," and 
of the abortive coalition, was also count- 
ed ; — all these varied agencies working 
for the diminution of the natural force of 
the paity of peace, and to the increase cf 
the party of corruption — without a single 
exception. 

To establish and maintain, in their own 
party, a solid basis of action, by securing 
through all these influences, and others 
unworthy of mention, a substantial ma.ss 
of genuine legal voters, was anollier es- 
sentially important measure of the grand 
plan. To fix with equal exactness the 
veritable vote of their opponents, was of 
the same necessity, and, in like manner, 
indi.«pensable to the advantageous forma- 
tion and successful management of the 
best-arranged scheme of fraud. If the 
cheating game were tried on both sides, 
there would be an end at once of all cer- 
tainty in the operations of politics. Thence, 
the unatlected horror and alarm excited 
among them in 1840 by the discovery cf 
suspicious and suj)po?ed criminal move- 



24 



TTie Mystery of Iniquity. 



merits made in 1838 by some persons con- 
nected wiih the opj)03ing party in New 
York, in the introduction ot voters from 
another city. If that party should cheat, 
and should organize a permanent efiective 
sy;*tem of frauds on the elective franchise, 
■vvbat would become of the party which 
justly claime(f a monopoly of the business, 
and a patent-right for the machinery, on 
the ground of liaving invented and tirst 
used it ? Every effort was therefore made 
by them, especially by those most active 
in fraud and most interested in its results, 
to prevent all danger of any renewal of 
such attempts by their opponents at that 
time or subsequently ; and they succeed- 
ed in tliat prevention to their own entire 
satisfaction. They have never pretended 
to suspect or accu.se their adversaries of 
these crimes since. Those u})on whom 
they then succeeded in ii.King suspicion 
have since been excluded not only from 
the confidence and favor of their own 
party, but from ;ill hope of power or re- 
wanl in case of its success. The term 
" pipe-layer" now remains on the part)' 
to which it was first applied, whose more 
open frauds and least criminal tricks, it 
^vas first manufactured to designate. In 
October, 1840, the party then in posses- 
sion of the city government and corpora- 
tion patronage, boldly stepped forward 
and took possession of the business of 
conducting the waters of theCroton into 
New York city, which was before that, in 
the exclusive possession of the party then 
commanding the patronage of the State. 
The con.struction of the aqueduct was 
originally under the direction of commis- 
sioners apj)ointed by the State govern- 
ment, then in the hands of the party op- 
posed to that whicii nilod in tlie city of 
New York. The Common Council, on the 
eve of the Presidential Election, assumed 
the power of constructing the channels 
through which the wMter should be con- 
veyed within the bounds of the city. 
Large companies of foreigners were im- 
mediately employed in digging trenches 
for the large iron pipes which would be 
required, two years later, when the aque- 
duct and reservoirs were completed. 
The work was totally premature and un- 
necessary at the time ; and the purpose 
of the managers of the City government, 
in thus introducing large boilies of for- 
eigners from other places just before the 
election, was .«o apparent, that the work- 
men employed in " laying pipe"' were in- 
stantly pointed out as the instruments of 
designed fraud; and the "pipe-layers" 



were continually spoken of as non-resi- 
dents brought in to give illegal votes. 
The term was subsequently thrown 
back, transferred, and applied by the 
guilty party to their opponents, in con- 
nexion with frauds said to have been 
committed, two years before the term 
was invented, by the party which always 
directed eveiy power within its means 
to the prevention, detection, and punish- 
ment of fraud. 

'J'he word " pipe-layer," which had ac- 
quired its infamous signification from this 
ilagrant abuse and cheat, was perverted 
by the fraudulent, to the purpose of fast- 
ening opprobrium and slander upon their 
opponents, as a part of their scheme for 
deterring them from ever attempting to 
resist fraud by fraud. The vote on one 
side must always be a fixed quantity, as- 
certainable by a fair canvass, in order to 
enable the other party to introduce illegal 
votes with any reasonable certainty of 
success. This basis of calculation being 
secured, the problem is extremely simple 
and practicable. Given — the exact num- 
ber of voters of one party, (for instance, 
20,000,) and the exact number of the 
other party (for instance, 17,000,) the 
solution is — 3,000 illegal votes, to coun- 
terbalance the majority, and 5,000, &:c., 
or any other number additional, requisite 
to overcome majorities in other sections 
of the State. 

Having surveyed the position of the 
two great parties and calculated the eflect 
of agencies then in operation on public 
opinion, the managers and directors of 
fraud proceeded early to make a diligent 
canva.-^s and enumeration of the legal vo- 
ters of each party everywhere. In the 
city of New York, in the .spring of 184-1, 
this secret census stated the whole num- 
ber of actual qualified electors, at 44,000. 
However surj)ri.sing to many this result 
may seciri, and though much smaller in 
proportion to the whole white population 
than is found in most other political di- 
visions of the country, — a careiul exami- 
nation of the various classes of j)eop!e in 
the city will confirm this statement, 
which, though often disputed and con- 
demned, was always repeated and firmly 
maintained by those acquainted with the 
facts of this private enumeration. Its 
l)robability apj)ears stronger as the inqui- 
ry proceeds to the exhibition of the vast 
number of persons resident in the city 
who, from various causes, are excluded 
from the elective franchise. There are 
in New York many thousand resident 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



25 



adult white males included in every cen- 
sus, who are not qualified as voters un- 
der the State Constitution, as " citizens 
of the United States who have resided in 
the State one year, and in tlie county six 
months." A vast transient population, 
inhabitants of hotels and lodging-houses, 
and other places of temporary abode, 
come hither on a venture, seeking a for- 
tune or seeking employment, who, after 
a few weeks' or months' experience, re- 
turn to the place whence they came, or to 
new scenes of trial, disappointed, and ac- 
quiring nothing but sad experience in the 
sober realization of the vanity of human 
wishes. Every great city abounds in 
temporary residents of this description, 
varying in rank from the literary and 
philosophical visionary, and the specula- 
tor in pecuniary enterprises, to the pro- 
fessional man, the journeyman mechanic 
and the day-laborer; but New York, 
from the metropolitan renown of its 
wealth and power, and its reputation for 
furnishing splendid opportunities of suc- 
cess to adventure and industry, is contin- 
ually inundated by rash experimenters, 
conlident of establishing a residence and 
securing wealth or subsistence — in num- 
bers beyond the calculation of those who 
have not carefully observed this peculiar 
transient population. Many thousand 
foreigners annually landing here, after a 
few months, and many more after vari- 
ous periods less than five years, grow 
wise by the vain expenditure of their lit- 
tle means, and pass on to other places 
and regions, where labor is better com- 
pensated and more in demand, and where 
the necessaries of life are less costly. 
Multitudes of these unfortunate strangers 
die here from want, or the effect of change 
of climate and habits. The burials in the 
ground devoted to interments of persons 
connected with the Popish sect, amount 
to more than 29,000 within the last twelve 
years, (averaging fifty-i'our a week in 
184-1) and those in the " Potters' field" to 
more than 10,000, (1400 in 1844, averag- 
ing twenty-four a week), making of both 
these classes an average of not less than 
4000 per annum, a large proportion of 
whom are, naturally, male adults. There 
are also many thousand seamen regis- 
tered as residing here, of whom not one- 
sixth are in port at any election. All the 
inhabitants of sailors' boarding-houses, 
wherever registered, are also included in 
the nominal population of the city at 
every enumeration. More than a thou- 
sand of those whose home and property 



are here, may be found in Europe and 
other parts of the world, traveling on busi- 
ness or for pleasure, though properly re- 
turned as veritable citizens in the census. 
There are also more real residents of 
New York absent in the country and in 
other States, at any one time, than can be 
mentioned in any other place, on account 
of the wide- spread and important com- 
mercial and financial relations of the city. 
Many foreigners of the higher order, per- 
manently located here, refuse to lie natu- 
ralized, from prejudice or indifference. 
]\Iany causes exclude others in large 
numbers from the exercise of the right of 
suffrage ; but those here specified ope- 
rate to mush more effect in New York 
than elsewhere. 

The number of legally qualified voters 
being fixed at 44,000, by actual canvass 
under secret direction, an enumeration or 
estimate of those who will not vote at 
any one election, was then made and sub- 
tracted. The number of those who, from 
peculiar habits, opinions, scruples, fears 
or religious singularities, (with those 
prevented by disease, sudden domestic 
calamity or accident,) though regularly 
entitled, fail to vote, is stated in the se- 
cret enumeration as not less than 2000, 
leaving 42,000 as the gross number of 
lawful ballots deposited in one day, when 
every practicable voter is brought to the 
polls. Of these, in 1844, the secret can- 
vassers claimed less than 20,000 as the 
whole number of actual voters belonging 
to their party, supposed or professing to 
be connected with them. To their oppo- 
nents, they allowed the remainder — 
about 22,000 lawful voters. They de- 
clared, also, that the opposite party would 
in one way and another commit frauds to 
increase their vote, when such moment- 
ous interests were at stake ; and they pre- 
tended to estimate this fraudulent vote at 
2500 — making the total hostile vote near- 
ly 25,000. They pronounced it necessary 
to increase their own strength to about 
28,000, or, as it was generally stated to 
the gamblers in secret, before the elec- 
tion, from 27,500 to 28,500. It was sup- 
posed, among their subordinates, that 
8000 or 10,000 illegal votes, in the city, 
would be sufficient to give them a safe 
preponderance on the ballot for Presi- 
dential electors, and would be decisive 
of the general result in the State and the 
Nation. 

This supposition or estimate of the 
vote in New York city, was made up 
some months before the election, and was 



26 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



communicated to the gamblers, as the 
basis of their operations ; and before the 
election it came to the knowledge of 
some persons in the opposing party, en- 
gaged in researches into ttie frauds kno«n 
to be purposed by those who could suc- 
ceed only by such enormities. It is very 
incorrect, in many particulars, and was 
probably designed to be so by those who 
furnished it. The only particular in 
which this secret programme coincided 
with the actual result, was in the state- 
ment of the vote of the apparent majority. 
The final official returns gave that party 
26,296 votes for their Presidential Elec- 
tors. The other party had 26,385 for 
their candidates — a material excess, not 
accounted for in the estimates. The es- 
timate of the whole lawful vote of the city, 
(42,000 and 44,000) was— though impro- 
bable, and so apparently untrue, as to be 
discredited by all tiasly readers — quite 
correct. Tlie statement of 20,000, as the 
lawful vote of their own party, was to- 
tally untrue— known to be false by those 
who made it. Their true lawful vote 
was some thousands less. From 42,000, 
the true (though incredibly small) num- 
ber of legal voters, take 26,000, the ac- 
tual number of votes given by the other 
party — the remainder" (16,000) is the 
veritable statement of the whole number 
of constitutionally qualilied electors, who, 
at the time when this enumeration was 
taken, belonged to that party or were 
induced to vote for their candidates. 
There was a small unintentional error, 
though the greatest was intentional. They 
(as might naturally be expected from 
bitter partisans, however careful) under- 
estimated the vast latent power and influ- 
ence of that mighty name which was the 
hope, the encouragement and strength of 
their opponents ; and they also under- 
estimated the degree of contempt with 
which their own pitiful nominations 
were regarded by many hundreds of the 
more intelligent and respectable of their 
own parti.sans. But the great difference 
between the statement and the truth, was 
made by a deliberate deception, practiced 
by them upon their allies and auxiliaries, 
the gamblers — the speculators in politi- 
cal chances and tricks, without who.«e 
interested cooperation and hopeful aid 
they would have failed of .securing some 
of the essential conditions of success in 
their stupendous inventions of political 
crime, if they had presented to their 
kindred cold-blooded community of 
crime the exact truth — had they an- 



nounced to them that out of the lawful 
votes of the city their adversaries would 
give to their great candidate 26,000 votes 
against the paltry 16,000 which would 
con.stilute the whole force displayed in 
sujiport of the insigniticant, nameless 
creature of accident whom they had been 
compelled in desperation to oppo.'^e to 
him, they would have been deserted by 
tlie whole ma.«s of these formidable aux- 
iliaries, the " sporting characters " and 
betting men. The gamblers were to be 
duped, if neccs!=ary ; — deceived, they 
were, at all events. The gamblers knew 
nothing of the great plans of those who 
thus operated upon them. They were 
not trusted with the details, but were 
assured (and 7/isured by pecuniary 
pledges) that the parly of fraud should 
poll not less than 27,500, and probably 
as many as 28,500 ballots, perhaps some 
thousands more. They were told that 
their opponents would not give over 
25,000 votes, genuine and spurious. 
Many were, therefore, on this informa- 
tion, induced to bet on 3,000 majority in 
the city ; and some of the most .sagacious 
and experienced lost largely by staking 
a great amount of money on 3,200, which 
was considered safe by the most intelli- 
gent, until eleven o'clock, A. IM., on the 
day of the I'residential Election. 

The first great object in thus enlisting 
and interesting the gamblers, was to 
cause them to pledge their money to the 
success of the apparently weaker cause. 
When the unexpected and otiensive re- 
sult of their nominating Convention in 
Baltimore was made known here on the 
first of June, not a wager was odercd in 
its favor, or could be obtained on any 
terms, for some time. Their politicians 
receved the intelligence with uncon- 
cealed disgust and despair. No gambler 
even thought of speculating on the 
chances of a nomination thus viewed and 
received. But this hopeless inactivity 
did not long continue. There was a 
mysterious gigantic agency already in 
vigorous movement, which had been 
organized some months previous, for the 
purposes of another Presidential candi- 
date, whose peculiar, devoted, and con- 
fidential friends were alone entrusted in 
this city with its direction and execu- 
tion, or with the knowledge of its exis- 
tence. Those who had toiled in its con- 
struction, and continued operation thus 
far, though linked in feeling and in their 
fortunes with the prospects of om: man, 
under whose control they moved, were 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



27 



yet not devoting their time and energies 
merely to the success of a favorite chief, 
or a party, or a cause, or an abstraction. 
Personal devotion of his followers to 
himself was a quality never expected or 
sought by that leader. Political attach- 
ment, secured only by disinterested pre- 
ference, respect or admiration, however 
well-founded, is a tie too frail and un- 
certain for the dependence of a life de- 
voted wholly to official employment, pro- 
fit and advancement. A more practical 
and lasting bond of union, in spirit and 
action, Avas found in " the cohesive 
attraction of public plunder," as it has 
been somewhat too bitterly styled by a 
man eminent for his disappointments in 
attempting to employ it. The advance- 
ment of the principal was promoted and 
secured only by the guarantees of a busi- 
ness-like compact, by whose faithful 
execution his supporters and assistants 
were to be compensated in case of his 
success, in stations graded according to 
the amount and value of the service ren- 
dered to the general enterprise, and the 
number of years during which fidelity 
had been maintained. Political enthu- 
siasm was discarded in these vital ar- 
rangements of the true origin of power, 
and displaced by a safe, unpretending, 
ever-wakeful, and unvarying motive. 

The arrangements thus carefully pre- 
pared under the direction of such powers, 
were not demolished, nor long suspended, 
even by the overwhelming change in the 
aspect of public affairs produced by the 
action of the National Convention in 
rejecting the candidate for whom and 
under whom the scheme had been pre- 
pared and put in operation. Bi;ief coun- 
sel and communication sufficed to secure 
the complete transfer of the entire obli- 
gations, pledges and secret agencies of 
the rejected candidate to the new substi- 
tute, conditioned upon which followed a 
like transfer of all the services, duties, 
and mysterious machinery of his sup- 
porters from the first to the second. No 
disturbance of the parts of the great and 
complicated system, or of their mutual 
arrangements, occurred. All arrange- 
ments, from the highest to the lowest, in 
an instant moved on unchanged. 

At this moment it was that the com- 
municaton was opened with the gam- 
blers, to secure their cooperation, intel- 
ligence, and sympathetic interest. They 
were told that by large bets at present odds, 
or "even," a sure result could be obtained, 
so contrary to actual public expectation 



at that time, that none but those initiated 
in the secret movement would dare take 
the risks, and that thus a magnilicent 
monopoly of gains, unparalleled in all 
the operations of chance, skill or fraud, 
would be secured in a moment. These 
assurances were made decisive and un- 
questionable by furnishing therewith to 
the speculators as much evidence of the 
power of accomplishment as could be 
given without a betrayal of the agencies 
and details. No perilous secret was en- 
trusted to mere gamblers and fraudulent 
adventurers. The information was given 
with very desirable particularity ; and 
the money was paid by them in relurn, 
not so much in the character of a fee or 
compensation for the intelligence, as by 
way of employing the means of making 
it effective and profitable. The money 
thus paid to the secret political agency 
was, in fact, but a form of insurance on 
the wagers taken with the knoM'ledge of 
the movement. The gambler, knowing 
all, collects his available money, and 
goes about the city seeking the variousbets 
which are offered on suitable terms. In 
all places of general resort and political 
conversation, he gathers up the random 
wagers of incautious partisans, and at 
every boastful declaration of confidence 
in the success of the greater candidate, 
compels the speaker either to suffer an 
implication of false professions, or to de- 
posit his money in testimony of his cou- 
rage and hope. " What will you bet?" 
" How much ?" " Pll take that bet .'" 
" Put up your money — here's mine .-" 
" Will you double the stakes ?" " Will 
any other gentleman make the same bet .'" 
"Any amount you please, at such odds !" 
These were the expressions passing thou- 
sands of times each day and night all 
over the city, while the gamblers were in 
this way " subscribing to the stock" of 
the NEW PLAN, and thereby providing for 
its successful operation. Many who en- 
gaged in this speculation to the largest 
amounts did not appear personally in the 
negotiations, but employed agents and 
runners to act for them with various 
sums, until the aggregated tens, fifties, 
and hundreds, equaled thousands and 
tens of thousands. The largerthe amount 
of money thus wagered, the more was 
expended to insure the winning of it. 
Thus, abundance of means flowed into 
the treasury of the secret council to sup- 
ply all the requirements of the enlerpiise. 
It had been fiist organized and begun 
upon money derived from other sources. 



28 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



Its continuation, in the summer and au- 
tumn, was largely dependent on these 
liberal contributions, wliich, in fact, were 
paid, or were subsequently to be paid, 
by their political opponents — were actu- 
ally only advances made by the gamblers 
on what may be considered the drafts or 
notes which were to fall due after the 
election. Every silly, mercenary mem- 
ber of the opposing party, who thus 
thought to put money into his pockets 
by betting upon what was then indeed 
the CERTAINTY of tlic succcss of liis emi- 
nent candidate, did in this way serve to 
support and promote the operations tend- 
ing to his defeat. If the foolish, brag- 
ging, betting friends of that great man 
could have been content with the cer- 
tainty of the accomplishment of the one 
great object on which the public and in- 
dividual good alilce depended, it would 
have remained a certainty. The whole 
result was not effected but by their mean 
and ])itiful folly, in thus becoming at 
once the agents and the dupes, the beasts 
of burden and the victims, of those who.se 
money they themselves were e.vpecting 
soon to receive and enjoy without ren- 
dering an equivalent. The tolerance of 
this despicable and dishonorable vice of 
betting, this vilest and most immoral 
and mischievous form of gambling, cost 
the nation all it has lost in that moment- 
ous struggle ! Let every man in the 
land, who bore the least part in this great 
mass of stupid wickedness, take to his 
conscience his share of the responsibility, 
and remember, with self-abasement, this 
unsearched, unrepented, unforgiven sin. 
In whatever day the people's retribution 
may come — in ruin, mi.scry, blood, or 
infamy — let him share the evil, and con- 
fess his agencies in its production — and 
" let this sit heavy on his soul" in that 
dark to-morrow ! 

But the political action of the gamblers 
was not limited to this very simple series 
of operations. They did not content 
themselves with merely furnishing the 
means, and leaving the work to be done 
therewith by those from whom they re- 
ceived this information, trusting that the 
prediction would be accomplished by the 
prophets. It was understood, indeed, of 
course, by those who invoked their co- 
operation and animated their hopes of 
gain, that the gamblers, " sj)orting-men," 
and criminals, were to exercise in their 
own way, in natural fellowship, their 
usual arts in the business of elections. 
Wherever pecuniarily interested in the 



result of a political contest, they employ- ' 
cd their own peculiar agencies to secure * 
such a result as would accord with their 1 
arrangements for winning. They had ) 
been accustomed to rely on the General 
Committees of the party, not only lor in- > 
telligeiicc of the movements and majori- I 
ties designed, but also for direction as to 
the mode and amount of frauds to be ac- 
complished by their own action. Under 
the operations of the " Old Plan" of fraud, 
had grown up a new branch of business, 
a regular profession, — the manufacture 
of spurious votes by associated or indi- 
vidual enterprise. A large portion of the 
gamblers had a.s.sumed and invented a 
trade which may be styled — that of 
" Election-broker.s." Suppose thataman, 
one familiar with their abominations, 
wishes to be nominated by the regular 
convention or committee of the parly, and 
then to be elected against any dissatis- 
faction created among men professing de- 
cency and moral principle. They con- 
tract with him first, to secure his nomina- 
tion by packing the Ward meetings with 
rioters ready to mob any man who op- 
poses him — and next, to elect him, by 
bringing to the polls the man who will 
put into the bal!ot-bo.\es«i'WJrtni/ voces' as 
are necesmrij to give him a plural it ij. The 
extensive and multifarious character of 
such operations, implies a necessity of a 
classification of agencies, and naturally 
suggests, as in all great systematic in- 
ventions, "a division of labor." The 
" election-brokers" therefore have, what 
may be called " contractors" under them, 
who engage, for certain stipulated sums, 
(to le paid after the official returns of the 
election ^o\v the work to be properly 
done,) to furnish the required majorities, 
to carry particular ^Vards and districts, 
so as to secure the success of the candi- 
dates named, and guarantee the bets 
thereon pending. Tlie election-brokers, 
after due arrangements with the political 
managers and candidates, having ascer- 
tained the exact k'gal canvass of the sec- 
tion in question, go to their agents, who, 
for reasonable considerations, contract to 
do the needful work. The subordinates 
call out and enrol their gangs of voters, 
led by their several directors, (termed 
" captains of squads,") and issue oiders 
for their location and employment. The 
bar!;;ain is generally made in these terms: 
" 1 have bet di)llars that 



will have 



majority in 



Ward or district. If I win it, you shall 
have hall." A small pecuniary advance, 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



29 



byway of" retaining fee," designed also 
to fuvnisih certain preliminarj- disburse- 
ments at tlie drinking-places where the 
rank and file are to be found and enlist- 
ed, is, generally, a matter of course. 
The " captain of the squad" picks up his 
men, the ragged vagabonds, the jail-birds, 
the criminals, the hopeless and friendless 
victims of vice and want, who rejoice in 
the elective franchise as their means of 
waging that revengeful war on society in 
which their misery finds bitter satisfac- 
tion, when they see the prosperous and 
respected classes humbled and defeated. 
These " cnfans perdus" are provided with 
their temporary homes, each with several 
lodging-places in different election-dis- 
tricts ; and are encouraged with liquor 
and frequent little gratuities, which make 
them to know their friends. They are 
schooled in their duties, and are told from 
whom they must receive their ballots on 
election-day, and under whose direction 
they must deposit them. I\Iany hundreds 
of them are wholly uneducated, and are 
consequently unable to read a single let- 
ter, or distinguish a name on the ticket 
which they carry. Such men must 
know whom to trust when they otfer a 
ballot ; and they are content to know 
that they vote as pleases their true 
friends, the enemies of the aristocracy, 
the advocates of " the largest liberty." 
The man of business, the merchant, the 
employer, the professional man, feels 
that he has done a great work when he 
has deposited his one vote, and goes to 
his ordinary occupation afterwards with 
infinite self-satisfaction, as a patriot who 
has done his whole duty, and has de- 
served well of the commonwealth. The 
vagabond and cheat does more at the 
same moment, and, as he thinks, does 
bettei". Feeble and faint is the attach- 
ment to the elective franchise of him who 
votes but once in a day. The foresworn 
assertor of " the largest liberty" will offer 
his ballot as long as he can do so without 
question, and will vote from sunrise to 
sunset, if unchallenged. 

Who doubts this .' No man who is 
not willing to pass for a fool or hypocrite, 
among knaves of his own breed, as well 
as among the whole community. How- 
many men can be found in the city of 
New York within three hours who arc 
ready, at live dollars a head, to swear an 
alibi, or that they are worth any amount 
of money necessary to make " straw- 
bail .' How many "Tombs-lawyers" 
are there, regular members of the honor- 



able legal profession, who are ready to 
suborn that perjury .' How many men 
are there in this city who consider pro- 
fessional perjury as part of their regular 
means of a livelihood ? Having decided 
these important questions in moral sta- 
tistics, let those who volunteer the an- 
swer, say — how many of these profes- 
sional perjurers and practiced impostors 
are idle on election-day.' He who can 
answer these inquiries can give pregnant 
replies to some others in the same con- 
ne.Kion. The sooner they speak, the 
better for the cause of justice and truth. 

These are some of the materials of 
political crime created by the conditions 
of American metropolilan society ; and 
these were some of the modes of their 
employment in 1844. Details might be 
multiplied, but to no purpose. All these 
particulars belonged only to the " old 
plan " of fraud. As might be imagined, 
it was varied, modified and extended for 
the great vital emergency. All the agen- 
cies of crime were invoked in that tinal 
struggle, and were summoned to do their 
worst. 

Under the impulse of occasion, thus 
suggested, old fraud developed itself in 
new forms of crime, and " sought out 
many inventions ;" yet it left much to be 
done — more than was dreamed of by 
many who thought themselves masters of 
the arts of villany. The whole rer-ources 
of the old-fashioned plan were expended 
and exhausted. The business of fraudu- 
lent naturalization was prosecuted as long 
as any man of foreign birth could be 
brought up to swear (even though igno- 
rant of the language) to five years' resi- 
dence, with due notice of intentions, of 
which, forged certificates, or tho.?c of dead 
men, were always in readiness for the first 
claimiart. The business of " colonization" 
was also conducted by them with accus- 
tomed vigor and enlarged scope. As the 
law deems a single night's residence in 
a ward or town or district sufRcient, ar- 
rangements were made by which a large 
number of young men boarding in one 
district to the eve of the election were lo- 
cated in new lodgings in other districts 
on that night. Presenting themselves at 
the polls, if challenged, (as they would 
naturally be, from their not being in the 
preliminary canvass,) they took the oath 
and voted with full legal security against 
the pains and penalties of perjury. They 
then went at their leisure to the election- 
district of their ordinary residence, where, 
being personally well-known, or at any 



30 



TTie Myslerif of Iniquity. 



rate incliulci! in the regular lists of voters 
by both parties, they might expect to vote 
Avithout being challenged. This class of 
voters were mostly such as would refuse 
to perjure themselves; and in every in- 
stance, where they were challenged they 
refused the oath, with pretended indig- 
nation at the implied suspicion, and the 
apparently wanton insult of a challenge 
in a district where they were so familiarly 
known as legal habitual residents of long 
standing. In many instances, this char- 
acter was so well played, that the chal- 
lenge was withdrawn, even when given 
on well founded suspicion. But wherever 
this form of fraud was foreknown, and 
the oath was insisted on by the challeng- 
ing party, the apparently honest voters, 
who were instructed to play this trick, 
walked away baffled, without any subse- 
quent attempt. It was a fraud not con- 
fined to the city, and was equally practi- 
cable in rural sections ; for the State con- 
stitution which requires of the elector 
one year's residence in the State and six 
months" residence in the county, leaves to 
every man the liberty of locating himself 
in any town, waul or election district, at 
the shortest imaginable period before he 
votes. All men who have no family, 
household or fixed domicile, all mere 
transient persons, lodgers in hotels and 
boarding-houses, can, therefore, legally 
change their homes from one place to 
another in a few minutes, and may safely 
swear that they are residents of every dis- 
trict in which they have lodged during 
the night previous, or intend to lodge on 
the night succeeding. This looseness of 
legal provisions has led to the notoriously 
extensive adoption, by both parties, of the 
practice of transferring voters of this de- 
scription from sections where there are 
large majorities to those where the pre- 

{)onderance is small or doubtful. The 
aw allows the inspectors of election to 
ask each man, under oath, " whether he 
came into that district for the purpose of 
voting at that election ;" hut, whatever his 
an-?wer, if he afterwards take the general 
oath as to qualifications, his vote must be 
received. This (lescrii)lion of Imposture, 
however immoral and contrary to the 
rights of the true residents of any locality, 
has acquired such force by long usage, 
as to be deemed hardly requiring conceal- 
ment or disguise, inasmuch as no convic- 
tion of a breach of the statute by such 
conduct could ever occur. As an evasion 
of law and a perversion of the elective 
franchise it had a continually demoraliz- 



ing effect on the community, and led the 
way to increasing enormities. 

The penalty for illegal voting, or for 
the attempt, is merely a fine not exceeding 
two hundred dollars, or imprisonment for 
not more than six months. False swear- 
ing in these matters, like wilful perjury 
of any other description, is punishable by 
imprisonment in the State prison for a 
term not exceeding ten years. 

The old measure of bringing in persons 
from other places and States, to give fraud- 
ulent votes, was also revived, as far as 
practicable, though on a smaller scale, 
proportionally, than in some meiely local 
elections. 'Jhe election in Connecticut 
occurred on the day previous — in New 
Jersey simultaneously and one day addi- 
tional — leaving little time for the transfer 
of voters excej)t from a few of the nearer 
portions of those States. From Pennsyl- 
vania, where the election closed more 
than three days previous, a considerable 
number were sent to New York for this 
purpose. Attempts were also made to 
introduce some from Bergen county. New 
Jersey. This form of fraud, though not 
made of essential importance, was yet em- 
ployed asfaras wasconvenient and secure 
— on the general principle of " leaving 
nothing undone which could be done." 

These varied operations were .sustained 
mainly by the gamblers on their private 
responsibility. The regularly constitut- 
ed representative bodies of the party styled 
" General Committees " had nothing to 
do with these matters as associations, 
whatever many of their members might 
do in other connexions. The business of 
naturalization was as usual, indeed, in 
the charge of a special committee through- 
out the season, and was made no secret ; 
but delegate as.<50ciations were not allow- 
ed to have anything to do with the mys- 
teries. No man of tact or experience 
could ever suppose that elective assem- 
blies like these i)artisan delegations were 
capable of keeping secrets so vital to the 
cause. The General Committees in that 
party were outside show, successfully 
designed to deceive the public and many 
of their own members, who were silly 
enough to imagii-e them the veritable de- 
positories of the mysteries and the seat of 
directive power. The great essential 
work and control was in other hands, 
wholly unknown to most of them. In 
both the groat political parties, member- 
ship of these bodies is sought as an honor 
by silly office-.seekers, who imagine that 
it is a station which gives them dignity 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



ai 



and influence, and strengthens their pre- 
tensions. A large number of tlie mem- 
bers are therefore totally incompetent to 
tlieir supposed duties ; and no party secret 
tould be safe among them. The com- 
mittees are useful for certain forms of 
proceeding and parade, and for some ac- 
tual work — for the calling of public meet- 
ings, the publication of addresses, the or- 
dering of " nominating conventions," for 
directing and superintending the preli- 
minary canvass ; but that is all. To the 
deeper and more important business they 
are a mere screen. 

Similar in their purpose and employ- 
ment were the various voluntary asso- 
ciations and "clubs" of pompous de- 
signation, which attracted so much notice 
during the great contest. The systematic 
employment of these was a secondary 
suggestion, caused by accident, and pro- 
moted by the folly of the newspaper 
press of the opposing party, which gave 
them a distinction and usefulness not 
before suggested to the managers. The 
most notorious of these, of whose per- 
formances, real and imaginary, so much 
has been said, was formed in a mere 
drunken frolic by a vulgar and ignorant 
throng, who sallied from a spacious grog- 
shop in Barclay street, on the night of 
the 4th of July, 1844, on a sudden im- 
pulse, and after marching around the 
streets awhile with drum and fife, re- 
solved to form a military company of a 
partisan character, to which they pro- 
posed to give the style of " Guards," 
prefixing the name of the favorite drink- 
ing-shop where the inspiiation of the 
movement originated. It was soon joined 
by a few ambitious ruffians, one of whom 
was soon made the head of it ; and at 
his suggestion its designation was altered 
to that of a " Club," for purposes of po- 
litical display. About eight professed 
pugilists were added to it ; and a large 
number of notorious felons and convicts 
mingled with it. The criminals generally 
were soon taught to regard it as their 
own peculiar association, and with these 
and the gamblers, and many weak young 
men, aspiring to the reputation of great 
wickedness, it soon swelled its numbers 
to between 1,000 and 2,000. After 
figuring in a few meetings and jiroces- 
sions, it acquired such notoriety from ill- 
advised and unnecessary denunciations of 
it by the organs of the opposite political 
party, that it was recommended to the 
managers of its own party as a valuable 
auxiliary, and was thenceforth regularly 



employed and paid as a fighting- club, to 
bully and assault peaceable citizens, to 
create riots, disturb meetings and proces- 
sions, and create among the floating mass 
of the people the impression that the su- 
periority of physical force was on that 
side of the question. That loudly-de- 
nounced Club, the object of so much no- 
tice and alarm, was a mere bugbear and 
stalking-horse, used to frighten the op- 
posing party, and keep their vigilance and 
means occupied so as to withdraw atten- 
tion from the real agencies of mischief, 
and cover the most formidable movements 
from view. For the purposes of fraud, 
the Club, composed in large proportion of 
the most notorious rufhans whose faces 
were familiar to thousands, was perfectly 
useless, and was never used ; though 
great pains were taken by its members 
and backers to give the impression that 
they were organized for that end. They 
Avere too ignorant, silly and noisy, to be 
capable of playing their part in any 
scheme requiring caution or art. Not 
one of their leaders had the intellect for 
such work, and their only office was that 
of obstreperous brutality. They were 
gladly used by the party managers as a 
show and means of violence, and as an 
object to occupy the anxiety and watch- 
fulness of their opponents while the great 
work went on in secret. The Club was 
to the opposing party what the red flag 
is to the bull, who madly rushes at it in 
the arena, while the matador securely 
and quietly thrusts the sword into his 
spine as he passes the real danger to as- 
sault an imaginary foe. 

In this protracted statement, has now- 
been set forth a mass of agencies appar- 
ently capable of producing any amount 
of fraud on the elective franchise which 
might be desired by those who employed 
them. Some thousands of illegal votes 
were thus deposited in the ballot-boxes 
of this city and similar places at the Pre- 
sidential election. The precise number 
need not be stated here. The great ques- 
tion is — " were they enough to make the 
great result what it was ?" The ej^es of 
the guilty agents of the mightiest scheme 
of fraud and the truly effective crime, will 
strain anxiously and fearfully over this 
paragraph to learn whether the threaten- 
ed revelation of their crime ends here; and 
great would be their satisfaction — high 
their exulting confidence, could they at this 
point be told — " this is all !" But it is not 
all. Conspirators! Monstere of crime ! — 
already fattening on the prey brought 



32 



77te Mystery of Iniquity. 



down by the secret shaft! The blood- 
hound search that you smilingly think 
you have cUided, has tracked you to your 
inmost den. Up and look to yourselves ! 
for the avengers of a nation's blood and 
tears are already upon you. 

All these that have been di.sclosed thus 
far are but the vestibule and courts of 
the temple. Open now the penetralia of 
the hideous sanctuary ; and behold 

" THE MYSTERY OF MVSTERIKS !" 

In the month of Februar}', 1841, was 
fully begun in Xew York (and elsewhere) 
this plan. A hundred men (so slated in 
round number) were in secret organiza- 
tion, under the style of a " Council of 
Pk.vce," and were in the laborious per- 
formance of several specified functions 
with one common purpose. They ob- 
tained a careful enumeration of all the 
legal voters in every election-district, with 
the proportions of political parties. They 
secured the collection or responsible 
pleJge of about S20,0()0 as a commencing 
capital .stock, drawing this large amount 
mostly from a few persons of great wealth 
and high .standing in the community, ab- 
solutely devoted by prejudice or interest 
to their party, and resolved to retrieve its 
then failing fortunes and secure its suc- 
ce.s3, by any and every means which 
might be nece.'^.sary, without considera- 
tion of the legality or moral propriety of 
the same. Their as.surance of the ob- 
servance of secresy between them and all 
persons concerned, and of the exact ap- 
plication of the money to the a.ssigned 
purpose, was derived from the pledge of 
the approbation and supervision ot the 
plan by a few distinguisheil persons rank- 
ing above themselves, and above all. The 
object proposed was — not the probability 

but THE ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY OF SUC- 
CESS in the pending contest for the su- 
preme power in the State and Nation, 
which was guaranteed to the contributors 
on the one hand by the unquestionable 
authority of men beyond distru.st, and on 
the other hand by the perfection and ir- 
resistible power of the scheme itself. 
The money came forth, in large dona- 
tions, from the long-accumulated hoards 
of covetous bankers, brokers and traders, 
and even from the treasured spoils of po- 
litical victories, where individual wealth 
had been the product of partisan triumph. 
There was among them one man who, 
with very high honors, had also attain- 
ed riches to such an amount that he 
could have contributed one-half of the 



required .sum without curtailing his 
abundance ; and had other sources failed, 
his hopes and prospects, as connected 
with the final object, would have made 
the donation of the whole aj)parently a 
profitable investment of his capital. 
There were others who had derived large 
fortunes from party favor and govern- 
ment patronage, to whom singly the en- 
tire sum would not have been the tithe 
of their accumulated profits. There were 
others, totally unconnected with public 
employments and political honors, who 
saw their private interests so far involved 
in exi.sting legislation and its desired 
changes, tliat they promptly and willing- 
ly gave one thousand dollaiseach, in the 
hope of depriving of the benefit of Pro- 
tective duties all who produced at home 
what they wished to introduce from 
abroad, and of destro5'ing all revenue 
legislation for the benefit of every class, 
except those who " go down to the sea 
in ships and do bu.sine.ss on the great wa- 
ters." Several imj)ortersand great ship- 
owners gave their thousands to effect the 
ultimate removal of all restrictions upon 
foreign trade, except the imperative lim- 
itation of that portion of it in which they 
were interested, to vessels owned or em- 
ployed by themselves. There were some 
such who, but for the enactment of the 
present revenue laws, would have re- 
mained in their original connexion with 
the party which they abandoned and de- 
nounced for having extended to others 
the discriminative regulations bciore en- 
joyed by themselves alone — justifying 
their avarice, by impudently declaring 
themselves opposed totheTarilfin princi- 
ple,meaning thereby — interest. As to the 
uses for which their money was design- 
ed, they sought not to be informed. They 
l)aid it as a fee for certain services to be 
rendered to them, — a compensation in 
advance, for promised benefits, — an ordi- 
nary, " fair business transaction." Com- 
mercial morality, commercial honor, ex- 
acted no further investigation oi the mode 
in which their donations were employed. 
Though fraud, brutality, perjury, were 
the means, and though national infamy 
and ruin and war be the result, — each 
of them, like the lioman j)rocurator, will 
wash his hands, saying " I am innocent 
OF this blood." 

The professional gamblers were not 
yet called in ; lor their sea.'^on of useful- 
ness had not come. But there were sev- 
eral devoted wealthy partisans, large 
contributors, who were as prompt and 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



33 



acute to avail themselves of these oppor- 
tunities for speculation by political 
wagers, as they would have been to se- 
cure the stock of a corporation whose 
speedy increase of value they had been 
privileged to foreknow. The donations 
were easily covered by bets correspond- 
ing in amount, based on the knowledge 
of operations in progress by which suc- 
cess was insured. 

The tremendous exigency forced that 
unscrupulous party to the invention of 
new machinery and the employment of 
novel agencies of fraud. The vicious, 
criminal and infamous classes, upon 
whose action they had been accustomed 
to rely, were not competent to the peril- 
ous difficulties of the crisis. The respect- 
able, " honorable," unimpeachable men 
of the party, hitherto quietly profiting 
by crimes with whose details they were 
not supposed lo be acquainted, and 
which they might know only by infer- 
ence, were now compelled to come for- 
ward and put their hands directly to the 
wicked work on which depended their 
rescue from annihilation and oblivion. 
Each who hoped anything from success, 
whether high station, official honor and 
great endowment, power or fame, 
whether legislative action or executive 
I)atronage, brought his own peculiar gift 
to the common storehouse of munition. 
As the wealthy contributed their money, 
the powerful chiefs of the party brought 
together the fruits of many years of saga- 
cious observation and instructive expe- 
rience ; and the mightiest minds yielded 
their most subtle inventions, as the de- 
tails will show. Over all was thrown 
the impenetrable cover and defense of a 
combination of respectability, supposed 
probity and external virtue, capable of 
defying suspicion and baffling scrutiny. 

That great school of political crime 
which has had its seat in the city of 
New York and the Capitol of the State 
for a quarter of a century, and from 
whose poisoned fountains have pour- 
ed forth streams of corruption through 
the whole Union, gathered all its 
terrible resources, enlarged its theory 
and its practice, corrected, its rules, re- 
hearsed its lessons, and strengthened the 
obedient confidence of its disciples. Its 
two great masters vv^ere in its councils, 
the two survivors of the three founders. 
Never was any product of the human 
mind more rationally and logically de- 
duced from experiment and observed 
fact, than that peculiar science ot political 



roguery, for which New York is famous 
as the source. The origin was purely 
experimental, both in the Capitol as to 
the management of State afl'airs, and in 
New York city in the inventions of fraud. 
It was a perfect example of the Induc- 
tive Philosophy. 

The sum of money required for a basis 
of operations, and the canvass of the law- 
ful vote of the city (obtained by the help 
of tlie old organizations in the General 
Committee and the Ward and District 
Committees) were placed by the " Coun- 
cil of one hundred" in the hands of a 
select executive body, a central Directory 
called " the Five," though not implying 
by that title that owly five persons were 
associated in this inner council, signory 
or cabinet. Five however, were always 
on duty, and active daily. " The Five" 
were invested at once and throughout 
with absolute, discretionary power. 
They called on the larger council (the 
100) from time to time, for money, for in- 
formation and for labor, and received 
all without question from them. They 
made these demands and issued mandates, 
directed all action, appropriated and ex- 
pended money, but made no reports, and 
were held to no accountability to any 
person or persons whatever. Perfect 
secresy and irresponsibility as to their 
actions — was the hrstlaw of their organi- 
zation. 

Before the end of winter, in the open- 
ing of 1844, the Secret Council of Five 
had matured and put in active operation 
a plan which will be pronounced by the 
world the greatest product of human 
villainy. It has not a parallel or equal 
in the history of inventions. 

Another hundred men (the exact number 
not being essential to the main fact) were 
carefully selected by the hundred be- 
fore described under the title of the 
" Council of Peace," — -possessing many 
peculiar qualifications, requisite to the 
exact performance of certain prescribed 
services, essential to the salvation and 
continued existence of" the party." The 
larger council (gathered from every sec- 
tion of the city and almost every class in 
society) furnished the names of these 
individuals, after due inquiry and delibera- 
tion. The hundred picked men were 
required to possess these trails and en- 
dowments. They must be all young 
men, unmarried, between the ages of 
twenty-one and thirty, of such a personal 
appearance, physiognomy, complexion, 
bearing, air and deportment as would 



34 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



reader them exceedingly difficult to dis- 
tinguish among thousands of ordinary 
men. They were to be men totally de- 
void of all striking peculiarity of aspect ; 
their eyes, hair, lineaments, stature, walk, 
and movements, were to be perfectly 
common-place. In dress and externals, 
they were to be alike free from anything 
that could excite attention, fix remem- 
brance, or cause identilication by any or- 
dinary observer. They were all required 
to be A.MiuiiCANS by birth, totally free 
from all foreign peculiarities of accent, 
manner or deportment. As to occupa- 
tion, and position in life, they were 
to be generally journeymen-mechanics, 
employed in large establishments, where 
there are few workmen known to all 
their fellow-laborers, and where the per- 
sons engaged frequently change their 
masters from fancy or irregular habits, 
without exciting inquiry or attracting 
notice. Journeymen in printing offices, 
in shoe-shops, tailor-shops, machine- 
shop*, stone-cutters' yards, masons' and 
other builders' employments, and so on, 
wherever large numbers of men are en- 
gaged for short periods, and change their 
location often, on slight causes or on 
none at all, without imputation of singu- 
larity. They were ail to be quiet, unob- 
trusive, silent men, known to few, and 
disinclined by nature and habit to seek 
acquaintances or keep them. They were 
required to bo strictly temperate and vir- 
tuous in their habits, wholly unknown 
to the vicious and dissolute, and never 
seen in grog-shops, or any places where 
hreguiar or troublesome intimacies are 
contracted. They were to be the n^o.st 
ordinary samples of the great multitude, 
as far as po.ssible, wholly indistinguish- 
able from the mass. 

One hundred men of this cla.ss and de- 
scription were .studiously selected from 
thousands in the city, in the winter of 
1843-4. It need not be stated that they 
were bitter, devoted, unscrupulous parti- 
sans, capable of any crime in maintenance 
of their political principles, which they 
could commit without danger of detection 
orpunishment. They were thevery embo- 
dimentof those horrid abstractions of poli- 
tical crime so long breathed into the ears 
of th2 people by the masters of the arts 
of hypocrisy and imposition. They were 
men imbued, from their very birth, and 
through their whole life, with envy and 
hatred of those more elevated and success- 
ful classes with whose interests the oppo- 
sing party was believed to be associated. 

These men, with many others of similar 



character, named severally by individuals 
among the larger secret council, unknown 
as a whole to the whole body, were re- 
ported to the secret Executive Council of 
Five, who, alter due examination and 
painful discrimination, selected the requi- 
red number of tho.se who gave evidence 
of possessing in an eminent degree the 
very peculiar combination of requisites. 
The chosen hundred were then taken, 
singly, into instruction by their employ- 
ers, (personally unknown to them, and 
likely to remain so,) and were carefully 
taught the tasks required of them, while 
their compensation was assigned to them. 
First, they were engaged on regular 
weekly pay, with wages abundant for all 
their personal wants and for the exigen- 
cies of their new business, so proportion- 
ed that they should derive from it a nett 
income fully equal to the receipts of their 
ordinary trades and pursuits. This en- 
gagement was to last until the Presiden- 
tial election, and was subject to a renewal 
for an indefinite period, on like terms, 
w-ith a prospect of actual i'ERmanexce. 
Next, they were called up singly by the 
secret Council of Five, enrolled, instruct- 
ed in their 9uties, and drilled to their 
exact performance. They were directed 
to seek cheap lodgings in certain Flection- 
Districts, selecting as their places of abode 
in each, such houses as were commonly 
occupied b)' persons of their own rank 
and condition, transient boarders and un- 
married laborers. Each of them was fur- 
nished with a " hook," which was simply 
a piece of paste-board, stiff' paper or lea- 
ther, bent double in the form and size of 
an ordinary pocket " bank-book," upon 
the inside of which was pasted a corres- 
ponding piece of firm while paper inscrib- 
ed with a complete plan of the whole 
city, containing the boundaries and num- 
bers of every Ward and Election District. 
With this " book " always .sately placed 
on their persons, they were directed to go 
about, locating themselves from day to 
day in as many obscure boarding-houses 
as possible, each in a dillerent district — 
in each place giving a different name, and 
then marking, on the plan of the city, the 
number of the house, the street, and the 
name under which they had taken lodg- 
ings. They were ordered to pay for their 
lodgings (at the rate of 64 cents — 122 
cents a night) regularly, and to assume 
the appearance of ordinary plain work- 
ing-men, going in and out from time to 
time in such a way as to seem neither to 
seek nor shun notice from the other 
occupants. They were to busy them- 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



35 



selves continually with visiting these se- 
veral places of abode, and after having 
filled their entire list, were to be seen in 
each of them daily, or every other day, or 
as often as was physically possible — in 
the day-time, passing up to their sleeping- 
place as though for some small article 
left there— and in the night, apparently 
retiring to rest, and subsequently with- 
drawing in such a manner as to avoid 
suspicion of anj^thing singular. They 
were to manage so that two days should 
rarely pass without their being seen in 
the house by the keepers of it, with whom 
occasionally they were to exchange a few 
words without contracting any intimacy, 
— the object being to secure an impression 
on the mind of the person in charge of 
the house that his lodger was an ordinary, 
quiet person, of tolerably regular habits, 
but not to make him so familiar with him 
as to make future identification eas}^ 

On a fixed hour of a certain day in 
every week, each one of these men was 
instructed to present himself to his em- 
ployers at a specified place — generally, if 
not always, in a private house inconspi- 
cuously situated, and occupied by some 
person associated with the secret plan. 
The disciple was commanded to appear 
in every instance at the precise moment 
appointed ; as — if at a quarter past eight, 
P. jNI. — he was to present himself exactly 
at that time — neither at ten minutes nor 
twenty minutes past eight. If detained 
unavoidably, he was to allow the ap- 
pointment to pass and not to come again 
until his next regularly recurring staled 
moment of reporting himself. At these 
appointed periods, he stood in his turn 
before two or more of his employers, to 
whom (during the time he was engaged 
in fixing his various locations) he first 
handed his book, and reported the addi- 
tional places of apparent abode which he 
had secured since his last interview with 
them. If he seemed to have been slow 
in the work, he was asked the causes of 
delay, and was admonished to use all 
practicable and safe despatch, because it 
was vitally necessary that in every in- 
stance, without one variation or exception, 
the apparent residences should be secured, 
and the whole number of muhiplied false 
locations occupied, before the first of 
May, 1844. He reported his expendi- 
tures, on account for lodgings during the 
interval, and received his required portion 
of money for the ensuing period. He 
stated any noticeable circumstances occur- 
ring, or embarrassments or difficulties en- 



countered, and asked for any new direc- 
tions of which he had felt the need. He 
received such repetition of previous in- 
structions and such new counsels as 
seemed necessary to his thorough mastery 
of the art — was cautioned against any 
special perils of exposure incurred by any 
negligence or defect on his part, and sent 
forth to the continuation of his work. 

The whole object of this gigantic plan 
and intense labor was, of course, to se- 
cure to this body of men, what should 
appear to any ordinary observation veri- 
table bona-jide residences in the numerous 
Election-Districts assigned to them seve- 
rally, and to have them so maintained, 
that the keepers and true occupants of 
any house so used, should be able, in case 
of investigation, to attest and swear, as of 
their actual knowledge, that the man in 
question was a regular permanent resident 
there — not atransient person or occasional 
lodger, but for nearly the whole year, 
and (as it would prove on inquiry in very 
many instances,) a longer time an inmate 
of the house than any other boarder in it 
— having (as all would sincerely witness) 
constantly lodged there six, eight or nine 
months, and regularly paid his board. 

The necessary precautions against ac- 
cidental identification by persons meeting 
them in two or more different places, 
were duly taken and continually multi- 
plied. Ready answers to all casual in- 
quiries from the occupants of the houses, 
from their own former acquaintances and 
fellow-workmen with whom they had 
once been employed in the same shop 
were also provided, rehearsed to them 
and laboriously impressed upon them. 
They were trained to constant vigilance, 
acute perception, quick observation, un- 
obtrusive, unnoticeable demeanor, dress, 
air, language and tone. All their facul- 
ties were devoted unremittedly and ex- 
clusively to this one study and task. 
They were from the first moment of their 
engagement and enrolment, withdrawn 
from all other employment, and freed 
from the necessity of their former labor, 
by a steady weekly compensation in 
their new business. Their whole time, 
duly allowing what was needful for re- 
pose and relaxation, was occupied in this 
labor — first, of going about and securing 
lodgings, and afterwards, of visiting their 
numerous places of nominal abode daily, 
to keep up the appearance and formal 
evidence of continuous occupancy. If 
their landlords should happen to remark 
— " You have been away for two or 



36 



The Mystery of Iniquity. 



three days" — or " I havn't seen you 
about, lately" — they were to answer — 
" O, I have a brotiier [or friend] who is 
a watchman in [some remote district,] 
and he has been unwell, and 1 took his 
place for a night or two." — Or " 1 have 
been sitting up with a sick relative or 
friend." — Or " 1 have been to visit my 
father in the country," &c. k.c. The de- 
tails of these artifices are interminable. 
To repeat all, would require a volume. 

But at last comes the actual work 
of THi: GRKAT DAY, for which all this 
mighty scheme was prepared. On the 
day of election, the picked man presents 
himself at the polls in the district where 
he rises, and offers his vote. He appears 
to the inspectors and challengers a plain, 
simple, humble, quiet, decent laboring 
man, an American by birlh, with nothing 
to distingui.sh him from the mass of vo- 
ters. He gives his name and residence ; 
the challengers of both parties fmd it 
" all right ;" it is recorded in the canvass 
taken by each, weeks ago. In forty-nine 
cases out of lifty, his vote is received un- 
questioned; and he passes unnoticed, for- 
gotten in a moment, and for ever — 
wholly undistinguishable by the most 
discerning memory, among the hundreds 
of forms with which the wearied eye 
grows dim on that day. But — suppose, 
by accident, ignorance or excessive cau- 
tion, his vote is challenged. Does he 
offer to " swear it in ?" NO. He has 
been schooled for months to the preven- 
tion of the necessity of this crime. He 
has been strictly warned by his employ- 
ers never, in any instance, to commit per- 
jury. He merely assumes a look of sur- 
prise, mingled with a very slightly of- 
fended air, and respectfully asks — " Why 
is my vote challenged ?" Or " Who chal- 
lenged my vote ?" " 1 am well known as 
a voter in this district. 1 have lived here 
steadily for almost a year. I have nut 
slept out of the Ward one night in si.t 
months. If any gentleman doubts it, 
just let him step with me to the house 
where I board and satisfy himself. 1 
shall not take the oath. I am a poor man, 
and work for a living, and should like to 
vote ; but I .';han*t swear it in." " It's 
the first time my vote was ever challeng- 
ed." " I am a native of this country, and 
have always voted since I was of age ; 
and now Vm challenged where hundreds 
of Irishmen, who havn't been five years 
in America, vote without being question- 
ed." These expo.stulations are uttered 
in a tone, regular grading from mild re- 
monstrance in the outset, to apparently 



honest indignation at the close, with 
which he departs, if the challenge is not 
withdrawn; but it is almost a certainty 
that the challenger would be satisfied that 
he had erred, or would at any rate yield 
to the adroit allusion to foreign voters. 

If it were possible that in spite of all 
the.'^e precautions and artifices, he be sus- 
pected, accused, arrested — what then .' 
For this, too, has he been prepared, and 
if he is identified as having voted in two 
or more places, he know.s that all the 
inventions and tricks of the law will 
be exercised to shield him. The best 
counsel will defend him, jurors will se- 
cretly befriend him, and jvdces in more 
courts than one, (who knowingly owe 
their places to the success of such crimes, 
and expect therefrom continuance or pro- 
motion,) will also exert every ])ossible 
power to save him. If convicted, his 
.sentence shall be the lightest, (six months 
being the utmost extent which the law 
vlWowr.) and, ii not pardoned by an ex- 
ecutive oflicer equally conscious of the 
mighty crime, and counting on its repe- 
tition for future power and greatness, the 
prison shall be no injury to him; he 
shall be paid for the time occupied in 
prison more than he can earn at liberty. 

This is enough. Here is a master- 
piece of fraudulent invention by which 
any required number of votes can be 
given at any future day, beijond all possi- 
bility of prevention , even tvhevi foreknown. 
Add the perjury, (which was not found 
necessary before,) and what can obstruct 
the execution of the plan .' To follow 
and detect each man would make it ne- 
cessary to send two or three men after 
more than two-thirds of the lawful voters 
of the city, to dog them from morning 
till night. It is absurd to think of pre- 
vention. As for the much-vaunted 
" registry law," it would only facilitate 
the iVaud and furnish additional securi- 
ties against detection ; and it was, in 
fact, from the exigencies created by that 
law, that the first suggestions of this 
now perfect scheme were derived. 

The great problem of American gov- 
ernment is solved. Those who have in- 
vented, elaborated and perfected this 
mysterious and tremendous engine, re- 
tain control of it still ; and by it, they 
and their regular constituted successors 
will rule this land while the elective 
franchise exists in it. The revelation of the 
mystery is a detection at which they can 
laugh, in contemptuous security, safely 
defying attack and deriding denunciation. 



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